advice/opinion on "<-" vs "=" in teaching R
On 15-Jan-10 04:06:55, Rolf Turner wrote:
On 15/01/2010, at 4:45 PM, Erin Hodgess wrote:
Hi R People: I'm teaching a statistical computing class using R starting next week (yay!) and I have an opinion type question, please. I'm old school and use "<-" in an assignment. However, I'm starting to see the "=" in the literature. Which should I use or does it matter, please?
It's basically a matter of taste. But people with ***good*** taste use "<-". :-) Constructions such as "a = a+3" are toadally illogical whereas "a <- a + 3" makes perfect sense. However I'm sore afraid that as is always the case, good taste fails and bad taste prevails. I.e. "=" for assignment will take over.
Yes, water flows down-hill -- unless we build control structures ...
Personally I shall resist as long as possible, i.e. until "<-"
is removed from the syntax structure by R Core.
cheers,
Rolf
There is at least one context where the distinction must be preserved. Example: pnorm(1.5) # [1] 0.9331928 pnorm(x=1.5) # Error in pnorm(x = 1.5) : unused argument(s) (x = 1.5) pnorm(x<-1.5) # [1] 0.9331928 x # [1] 1.5 Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 15-Jan-10 Time: 06:57:16 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------