How to google for R stuff?

On 20/05/2009 10:01 AM, cryan at binghamton.edu wrote:

For Google searches, I find that throwing in the term cran on every search helps weed out irrelevant pages.

For example, instead of 

r residuals

I type

r cran residuals

You are very picky.  When I enter

R residuals

into Google, 8 out of the first 10 hits are for R topics.  Isn't that 
good enough for you?

I think this is true of most Google searches:  the letter R most often 
means the R project.

Duncan Murdoch

--Chris Ryan

---- Original message ----

Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 09:43:14 -0400
From: Luc Villandre <villandl at dms.umontreal.ca>  
Subject: Re: [R] How to google for R stuff?  
To: Kynn Jones <kynnjo at gmail.com>
Cc: r-help at r-project.org


Kynn Jones wrote:

Hi!  I'm new to R programming, though I've been programming in other
languages for years.

One thing I find most frustrating about R is how difficult it is to use
Google (or any other search tool) to look for answers to my R-related
questions.  With languages with even slightly more distinctive names like
Perl, Java, Python, Matlab, OCaml, etc., usually including the name of the
language in the query is enough to ensure that the top hits are relevant.
 But this trick does not work for R, because the letter R appears by itself
in so many pages, that the chaff overwhelms the wheat, so to speak.

So I'm curious to learn what strategies R users have found to get around
this annoyance.

TIA!

KJ

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Hi Kynn,

I've had this problem too in the beginning. Luckily, my personal 
experience has taught me that almost all relevant R-related information 
can be found either by searching directly through the archives of the 
different R-forums or by using the functions "RSiteSearch()" or 
"help.search()". The reference manuals provided with each package 
(easily accessible on CRAN) are also invaluable sources of information.

Unfortunately, phrasing queries in a way that will yield relevant 
results is sometimes hard. Knowledge of the terminology mostly comes 
from experience, so patience is in order.
Of course, as a last recourse, there's always the mailing list.

Bottom line is, I suggest you try to avoid generic search engines and 
concentrate your efforts on the different R-forums (note that there are 
also package-specific forums).

I suspect the more experienced R-users might have better strategies to 
propose though...

Cheers,
-- 
*Luc Villandr?*
/Biostatistician
McGill University Health Center -
Montreal Children's Hospital Research Institute/