Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-12 Thread Rolf Turner
On 13/02/2009, at 1:15 PM, Wensui Liu wrote: my personal feeling about R website is that it is as good as how it should be. i don't have any problem to navigate around and know exactly where I can find the thing that I need. instead, knime.org website looks too fancy and is all about marketin

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-12 Thread Wensui Liu
my personal feeling about R website is that it is as good as how it should be. i don't have any problem to navigate around and know exactly where I can find the thing that I need. instead, knime.org website looks too fancy and is all about marketing. i don't think it is necessary for R team to wast

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-12 Thread Kingsford Jones
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:12 PM, Johannes Huesing wrote: > Last time I tried, rseek.org yielded no results when searching for "inferno". ...although, if you hit the 'Support Lists' tab it finds the thread in which Patrick announced it. > > -- > Johannes Hüsing There is something

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-12 Thread Johannes Huesing
Andrew Choens [Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 04:56:33PM CET]: > * Quick-R - http://www.statmethods.net/ > * The R Inferno - www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/R_inferno.pdf > * Rseek.org As an aside: Last time I tried, rseek.org yielded no results when searching for "inferno". --

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-12 Thread Andrew Choens
I agree with those who would like to see the R-Project's site redone. If/when it is redone, I think there should be more emphasis on providing links / access to useful materials for new users. I find it interesting that this discussion has been very focused on the technologies that should be used,

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-09 Thread Ajay ohri
For redesigning functionality , some input must be given to the path of web pages followed by users. This would rely on the current analytics software installed on the main website (?) . I use a software called called clicky from www.getclicky.com and use the user input to tweak pages,posts includ

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-09 Thread Martin Maechler
[coming late to an interesting thread ...] > "Ao" == Ajay ohri > on Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:14:03 +0530 writes: Ao> Plain HTML coding is simple enough for this list ( I think)...but aesthetic Ao> designhmm I tend to agree. A few months ago, we had volunteers to improve the

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-06 Thread Wacek Kusnierczyk
Patrick Connolly wrote: > On Sun, 01-Feb-2009 at 11:34PM -0500, Stavros Macrakis wrote: > > |> A first step that would make the current Web page look much better > |> would be to anti-alias the demonstration graphic. The current graphic > |> makes R graphics seem (falsely!) to be very primitive. I

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-05 Thread hadley wickham
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:56 PM, Patrick Connolly wrote: > On Sun, 01-Feb-2009 at 11:34PM -0500, Stavros Macrakis wrote: > > |> A first step that would make the current Web page look much better > |> would be to anti-alias the demonstration graphic. The current graphic > |> makes R graphics seem (

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-05 Thread Patrick Connolly
On Sun, 01-Feb-2009 at 11:34PM -0500, Stavros Macrakis wrote: |> A first step that would make the current Web page look much better |> would be to anti-alias the demonstration graphic. The current graphic |> makes R graphics seem (falsely!) to be very primitive. I'm afraid I |> don't know how to

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-05 Thread hadley wickham
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:32 AM, hadley wickham wrote: >> > I don't think you should completely rule out javascript. It's >> > possible to use it in ways that add to the utility of a page, while >> > not detracting from it if not available. >> >> OK, what particularly do you have in mind? Some

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-05 Thread hadley wickham
> > I don't think you should completely rule out javascript. It's > > possible to use it in ways that add to the utility of a page, while > > not detracting from it if not available. > > OK, what particularly do you have in mind? Here's a few of examples off the top of my head. These are thin

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread Friedrich Leisch
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2009 13:05:56 -0600, > hadley wickham (hw) wrote: >> > It might be good to put some mild restriction on the design: >> >> > * should be valid (x)html and css >> >> Of course (although the current page also does not validate without >> errors ;-) >> >> >

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread Ajay ohri
Quite nice and simple. A thing of beauty is a joy forever.Thanks a lot. Regards, Ajay www.decisionstats.com On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote: > Hadley put together a couple of nice versions of the main Windows download > page cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base, and I've a

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread hadley wickham
> > It might be good to put some mild restriction on the design: > > > * should be valid (x)html and css > > Of course (although the current page also does not validate without > errors ;-) > > > * use the YUI css grid framework for layout > > Never heard about that one, but looks sensible. >

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread John Kane
--- On Tue, 2/3/09, hadley wickham wrote: > From: hadley wickham > Subject: Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R > To: "Neil Shephard" > Cc: r-help@r-project.org > Received: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 9:20 AM > > Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most w

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread friedrich . leisch
> On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:00:54 -0700, > Warren Young (WY) wrote: > friedrich.lei...@stat.uni-muenchen.de wrote: >> >> For technical reasons there are some conditions: the homepage is >> maintained via SVN like the R sources, so all should be plain HTML, no >> content management

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread friedrich . leisch
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2009 10:05:44 -0600, > hadley wickham (hw) wrote: >> > One of my colleagues is a interdisciplinary PhD in Design and >> > Psychology and he has an "in" with a design school where we might be >> > able to get students to take on the redesign of the website. >> >>

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread John Sorkin
In any redesign we need to remember that a good user interface that works with as many browsers as possible should be the primary design criteria. We don't need eye candy. John John David Sorkin M.D., Ph.D. Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics University of Maryland School of Medicine Division

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread hadley wickham
> > One of my colleagues is a interdisciplinary PhD in Design and > > Psychology and he has an "in" with a design school where we might be > > able to get students to take on the redesign of the website. > > Thanks a lot, sounds exactly like what we need. If they don't succeed > we can always by

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread Duncan Murdoch
Hadley put together a couple of nice versions of the main Windows download page cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base, and I've adopted one of them for the release, and the patched and devel snapshot builds. They should show up on CRAN in a few hours. Thanks a lot for the contribution, Hadley:

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-04 Thread friedrich . leisch
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2009 18:56:37 -0400, > Mike Lawrence (ML) wrote: > One of my colleagues is a interdisciplinary PhD in Design and > Psychology and he has an "in" with a design school where we might be > able to get students to take on the redesign of the website. Thanks a lot, sounds

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Mike Lawrence
One of my colleagues is a interdisciplinary PhD in Design and Psychology and he has an "in" with a design school where we might be able to get students to take on the redesign of the website. He asks: "In order to ensure efficient consumption of resources and maximize our return on investment, ple

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Warren Young
Neil Shephard wrote: Why make the human tell the computer things it already knows? Because sometimes the human has a better idea as to what they want than the computer? I think the computer can guess the right answer in the solid majority of cases. Up in the 90th percentile certainly, pro

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Patrick Burns
Ajay ohri wrote: How much time do you think is needed to read 133 pages of FAQ. About 132.5 / 133 more times longer than most people are wanting to spend. Patrick Burns patr...@burns-stat.com +44 (0)20 8525 0696 http://www.burns-stat.com (home of "The R Inferno" and "A Guide for the Unwilli

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Ajay ohri
How much time do you think is needed to read 133 pages of FAQ. Regards, Ajay www.decisionstats.com On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Uwe Ligges wrote: > Hadley wickham wrote: > >> The most useful thing (and quite rightly so) on the front page is the link >>> the the FAQ which should be the st

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Uwe Ligges
Hadley wickham wrote: The most useful thing (and quite rightly so) on the front page is the link the the FAQ which should be the starting point for anyone looking at any new software, and answers/explains everything thats pertinent! (At least thats what I read first when I start using new softwa

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Neil Shephard
Warren Young wrote: > > Yyeahhh...look how much that sort of stance has helped the cause of > Linux on the desktop. World domination has been a year or two away for > the last 10 years. (Speaking as one who uses Linux every day, and used > it as his main desktop at home for many years befor

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Neil Shephard
hadley wrote: > >> The most useful thing (and quite rightly so) on the front page is the >> link >> the the FAQ which should be the starting point for anyone looking at any >> new >> software, and answers/explains everything thats pertinent! (At least >> thats >> what I read first when I start

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread hadley wickham
> The most useful thing (and quite rightly so) on the front page is the link > the the FAQ which should be the starting point for anyone looking at any new > software, and answers/explains everything thats pertinent! (At least thats > what I read first when I start using new software and have ques

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Mike Lawrence
One of my colleagues is a interdisciplinary PhD in Design and Psychology and he has an "in" with a design school where we might be able to get students to take on the redesign of the website. He asks: "In order to ensure efficient consumption of resources and maximize our return on investment, ple

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread hadley wickham
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Peter Dalgaard wrote: > hadley wickham wrote: 1. avoid clicking on the "R version 2.8.1" link - that takes you to a directory listing of strangely named files > > Yes, this is of course much harder than avoiding to read the two bullet > points labele

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread John C Frain
Having listened to the complains I would like to say that I disagree. I like the Cran web set up. Given the amount of material it contains it is relatively easy to find things. It would be helpful if one read some of the material such as the FAQ or the R for windows FAQ or even the descriptions

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Warren Young
Neil Shephard wrote: Perhaps this is a deliberate design and serves as an "intelligence" test. If you can't navigate through to find the correct download you're really going to struggle getting started with R ;-D Yyeahhh...look how much that sort of stance has helped the cause of Linux on t

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Neil Shephard
hadley wrote: > > Have you ever used the R website? > > To download the latest version for R for windows you have to: > No I don't use windows and install R via the package management system of my chosen distribution (http://www.gentoo.org/). That said I have installed from source in the pa

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Peter Dalgaard
hadley wickham wrote: 1. avoid clicking on the "R version 2.8.1" link - that takes you to a directory listing of strangely named files Yes, this is of course much harder than avoiding to read the two bullet points labeled "Getting Started" 2. recognise that you need to click on an CRAN (

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Duncan Murdoch
On 2/3/2009 9:32 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:20 AM, hadley wickham wrote: Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one of the most popular text-editors. I am of cour

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Wacek Kusnierczyk
Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:20 AM, hadley wickham wrote: > >>> Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a >>> very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one of >>> the most popular text-editors. I am of course re

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Mark Difford
Hi All, Before these things be set in stone, it should be noted that it would be a real mistake to have a miscalculated statistical object on R's Homepage. Imagine if SAS found out! Fact is, the manner in which the percentage contribution of each PC to the overall inertia is calculated in the co

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread hadley wickham
>> 1. avoid clicking on the "R version 2.8.1" link - that takes you to a >> directory listing of strangely named files >> >> 2. recognise that you need to click on an CRAN (what is a cran?) >> >> 3. successfully select a mirror that is up-to-date (with no >> information about which mirrors are u

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Gabor Grothendieck
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:20 AM, hadley wickham wrote: >> Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a >> very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one of >> the most popular text-editors. I am of course referring to the suite of GNU >> utili

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread hadley wickham
> Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a > very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one of > the most popular text-editors. I am of course referring to the suite of GNU > utilities (http://www.gnu.org/) that make a working GNU/Linux di

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Wacek Kusnierczyk
Warren Young wrote: > Far more serious problems: > > - Use of frames. The usability problems of frames are well known, and > are justified only in a few special cases. A content-heavy site like > r-project.org is not one of them, if only because of the bookmarking > issue. the framing problem ha

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Neil Shephard
Barry Rowlingson wrote: > > 2009/2/3 Neil Shephard : > >> Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a >> very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one >> of >> the most popular text-editors. I am of course referring to the suite of >> GN

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Warren Young
friedrich.lei...@stat.uni-muenchen.de wrote: For technical reasons there are some conditions: the homepage is maintained via SVN like the R sources, so all should be plain HTML, no content management system etc. Consider using a static templating system, or a higher-level document language li

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Sarah Goslee
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:26 AM, Barry Rowlingson wrote: > > ... I'd say there was a direct relationship > between website glossiness and amount of usage - more people use > Notepad than Emacs. In which direction the causality (if any) works is > an interesting question... How many people use G

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Warren Young
Stavros Macrakis wrote: anti-alias the demonstration graphic. The current graphic makes R graphics seem (falsely!) to be very primitive. I'm afraid I don't know how to do the anti-aliasing myself. Simply re-plotting it in 2.8.1 built with Cairo support produces something better: htt

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Barry Rowlingson
2009/2/3 Neil Shephard : > Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a > very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one of > the most popular text-editors. I am of course referring to the suite of GNU > utilities (http://www.gnu.org/) that m

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-03 Thread Neil Shephard
Adam D. I. Kramer-2 wrote: > > I respectfully disagree. In my repeated experience, I have seen colleagues > in industry and university simply write R off as "too difficult" or "not > worth the effort" based on purely cosmetic grounds, and then at my urging > and after some instruction embrace R

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread Adam D. I. Kramer
On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Rolf Turner wrote: I think the R website is just fine as it is. Effort should be put into content and not into cosmetics. Those (potential) users who would be likely to be influenced by such trivialities as the appearance of the web page are unlikely to be the sort of peop

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread Rolf Turner
On 2/02/2009, at 3:52 PM, Ajay ohri wrote: Dear List, One persistent feedback I am getting to people who are newly introduced to R ( especially in this cost cutting recession) is - 1) The website looks a bit old. While the current website does have a lot of hard work behind it, should n

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread Tobias Verbeke
friedrich.lei...@stat.uni-muenchen.de wrote: On Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:14:03 +0530, Ajay ohri (Ao) wrote: > Plain HTML coding is simple enough for this list ( I think)...but aesthetic > designhmm In most cases one can do more than most think using HTML and CSS: Our universities corporate

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread hadley wickham
> We often get emails like the first in this thread that R could do with > an update on homepage design (I fully agree) ... but actually nobody > volunteers to do it. Hence, we still have what I did when the > worldwide number of R users was probably less than 1000. Well I've volunteered a couple

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread stephen sefick
I offer my time in this particular pursuit. Although, the website is functional and I wonder if statisticians and other scientists care about the aesthetics of the website. R is incredibly useful to me, and until this conversation I didn't even realize that the website was a little old school, bu

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread Ajay ohri
yes html and css can be pretty. the point is if we can do so much collective and individual work in suggesting,creating,maintaining much more complex codes- how much time would it take to replace the html of the home page? hmm .. who decides to create the Official 2009 Website Design

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread friedrich . leisch
> On Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:14:03 +0530, > Ajay ohri (Ao) wrote: > Plain HTML coding is simple enough for this list ( I think)...but aesthetic > designhmm In most cases one can do more than most think using HTML and CSS: Our universities corporate design was done by "professionals" an

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread friedrich . leisch
> On Mon, 2 Feb 2009 13:43:23 +0100, > ONKELINX, Thierry (OT) wrote: > Dear Fritz, > I'm wondering if the use of plain HTML is a conditio sine qua > non. Just not to be mistaken: with plain HTML I mostly meant text files, of course including CSS etc. > What are the advantages of

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread Ajay ohri
Plain HTML coding is simple enough for this list ( I think)...but aesthetic designhmm But a contest would the best way to get the best design and can be publicly asked from the graphics community ( not just the R community)..remember Tom Sawyer and the fence :) - I volunteer in both cases :)

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread ONKELINX, Thierry
t.uni-muenchen.de Verzonden: maandag 2 februari 2009 12:56 Aan: thomas.petzo...@tu-dresden.de CC: r-help@r-project.org; user-2...@r-project.org; p...@stat.auckland.ac.nz Onderwerp: Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R >>>>> On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:44:21 +0100, >>>>> Thomas Petzol

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-02 Thread friedrich . leisch
> On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:44:21 +0100, > Thomas Petzoldt (TP) wrote: > Hi, > you are probably right, though I must say that I like *spartanic and > efficient* homepages and I don't think that the example given by the > first mail is a good prototype for the R homepage. But, yes, o

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-01 Thread Thomas Petzoldt
Hi, you are probably right, though I must say that I like *spartanic and efficient* homepages and I don't think that the example given by the first mail is a good prototype for the R homepage. But, yes, occasional face lifting may be adequate. Anti-aliasing is of course simple, but that's pr

Re: [R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-01 Thread Stavros Macrakis
A first step that would make the current Web page look much better would be to anti-alias the demonstration graphic. The current graphic makes R graphics seem (falsely!) to be very primitive. I'm afraid I don't know how to do the anti-aliasing myself. Replacing the fixed-width, typewriter-style f

[R] Problems in Recommending R

2009-02-01 Thread Ajay ohri
Dear List, One persistent feedback I am getting to people who are newly introduced to R ( especially in this cost cutting recession) is - 1) The website looks a bit old. While the current website does have a lot of hard work behind it, should n't a world class statistics package have a better we