R-beta: Teach material for R
On Thu, 26 Mar 1998, Martin Maechler wrote:
"Kenneth" == Kenneth Nordstrom <nordstro at noppa.helsinki.fi> writes:
Kenneth> Howdy! I'm a newbie in R, but have nevertheless gone out on a
Kenneth> limb and used R this spring for teaching our stats students
Kenneth> "modern data-analysis". I've been using RNotes, but to get
Kenneth> some more (statistical) meat on the bones, I've complemented
Kenneth> it with material from Venables-Ripley. Most of the V-R stuff
Kenneth> (that I've tried) seems to work out of the box.
Kenneth> Q-1: Is this generally the case (except for obvious
Kenneth> differences with S+ like 3-dim graphics)? If yes, why is it
Kenneth> necessary to port MASS if you can source the files on their
Kenneth> diskette? Anyone tried this, or used other material for
Kenneth> teaching data-analysis with R a la V-R?
You must have been that you didn't have problems with "MASS".
Part of it certainly is because V&R use a very good S programming style.
Some other things involved in porting even when the S code is ok: * C, and even more so FORTRAN, tends to need minor changes since R only allows double precision (FORTRAN programmers often use REAL instead of DOUBLE PRECISION, which is quite a bit faster on some computers (though not x86s)) * The help pages need to be converted to R help format (we have a Perl script for this) * The directory structure for an R package is different. These are all routine (unlike the occasional changes to the interpreted code), but still need to be done to make a package (as distinct from a code fragment) useful.
Kenneth> Q-2: How does R compare with XploRe? The latter seems to have
Kenneth> the advantage that more macros/functions are already written,
Kenneth> it has a nice graphical user interface (a consideration when
Kenneth> teaching) as well as 3-dim graphics (also dynamical). Has
Kenneth> anyone compared these in terms of capabilities as programming
Kenneth> languages? (Note that you can get XploRe for LINUX for free
Kenneth> and without expiry date!)
One advantage of R for teaching purposes is its compatibility with S(-PLUS), which is becoming very popular out there in the 'Real World', particularly in biostatistics. Thomas Lumley -----------------------------------------------------+------ Biostatistics : "Never attribute to malice what : Uni of Washington : can be adequately explained by : Box 357232 : incompetence" - Hanlon's Razor : Seattle WA 98195-7232 : : ------------------------------------------------------------ -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._