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Request to Replace Recordplot ,, replayplot

3 messages · Michael Cohen, Jeroen Ooms, Henrik Bengtsson

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Hi Michael,

It is not needed to post this two days in a row on the same mailing
list. Also if you search the archives, you find several previous
discussions on this topic that might be helpful to develop a more
informed opinion on the topic.

In short: the problem is well known. Several people have argued for
the benefits of supporting (serializable) plot objects similar to
matlab figs, however apparently this is not trivial to implement. As
with most software, the challenging aspect is to maintain backward
compatibility so that it doesn't break everything that currently
relies on it.

Perhaps if you study the source code of the R graphics device to gain
better understanding of the problem, you can develop a proposal or
implement a proof of concept of how you think this could be realized.
That might provide a more constructive basis for discussion.
On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 11:58 AM, Michael Cohen <mike1947 at gmail.com> wrote:
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Hi,

no need to repost and start yet another thread on the same topic as
you posted yesterday (R-devel thread ''ReplayPlot, limited to single
session for RecordPlot()", 2014-04-30).  It just makes it hard to keep
a constructive conversation in one place and it clutters up the
archives.

Replaying plots within the current session is still useful. I'm sure
others would love to be able to replay saved R plots across sessions.
However, there was (most likely) a very good reason for not using it
across session, which is why R added the assertion that it's not done
- it's to avoid harm/misuse.

If you search the R-devel archives [http://www.rseek.org/], you'll
find some discussion on this topic, e.g. R-devel threads
"inconsistency/bug in recordPlot/replayPlot", 2014-09-23
[https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2013-September/067471.html].
You'll find that Paul Murrell and others have though about this a lot.

Hopefully, this gives you enough to research to appreciate the problem.

/Henrik
On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 11:58 AM, Michael Cohen <mike1947 at gmail.com> wrote: