On 19/04/2009 4:01 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
On 19/04/2009, at 9:45 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
On 18/04/2009 8:47 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
On 17/04/2009, at 10:21 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
Benjamin Tyner wrote:
Many thanks Duncan. Perhaps this merits a more explicit note in the
documentation?
The quote I gave is from the documentation. How could it be more
explicit?
This is unfortunately typical of the attitude of R-core people toward
the
documentation. ``It's clear.'' they say. ``It's explicit.''
Clear and
explicit once you *know* what it's saying. Not before, but.
But I didn't say that. I asked how to make it more explicit.
Oh come on Duncan! You did *not*. You asked (rhetorical
question) ``How could it be more explicit?'' (Implied: How
could it ***possibly*** be more explicit?)
Well, I have to admit that I was thinking "***possibly***", but I didn't
write it, because I wanted a suggested revision. I didn't get one, and
still haven't, even after asking again. I won't ask a third time; I
already put something in, and if that doesn't satisfy you, then I think
you'll likely go to your grave unsatisfied.
You have to understand the process here:
- You (or Benjamin, in this case) find something unclear, but don't
suggest a clarification.
- I read it, find it clear, assume you didn't because you didn't read
the man page (or are mentally deficient), but I'm polite enough to point
out where I found the explicit explanation.
- You (this time really you) complain that it isn't clear, but *still*
don't write a revision.
Now, at either the 1st or 3rd step, it would have been much easier for
you (or Benjamin) to suggest a change that would have been clear to you,
than it was for me to try to imagine what it is like to live in your
head, and figure out what would be clear to you.
In this case the documentation is quite opaque to me, and I would
suspect
to a good many like me.
What change would make it less opaque?
For one thing, point out ***explicitly***, as you did in your post, that
getAnywhere() doesn't actually get ***anywhere***. Only some wheres.
We said where it looks. That still seems explicit to me. There are a
lot of places where it doesn't look, and now it lists two of them, but I
expect to hear complaints from you that I didn't mention the fact that
it doesn't look in your back garden.
(How's that for Canuck English, Berwin?)
cheers,
Rolf
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