Message-ID: <wk3bixtob5.fsf@connact.com>
Date: 2006-02-05T22:48:14Z
From: Patricia J. Hawkins
Subject: Glossay of available R functions
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0602030701370.4544@gannet.stats> (Brian Ripley's message of "Fri, 3 Feb 2006 07:11:42 +0000 (GMT)")
>>>>> "PBR" == Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>> commenting that subset was new to him, though he did say "list of
>> functions in R". I'd searched through everything _else_ in the help
>> system looking for such a glossary; I hadn't thought to look under
>> *Packages*, as those are, of course, add-ons.
PBR> `Of course' is incorrect here. Everything in R is in a package.
Just my thinking at the time; once I realized that everything in R is
a package, it occurred to me to look under the "packages" heading.
But that was after reading the R Language Reference Manual, and
working through a good bit of the Introduction To R.
>> So a comment such as "For an index of R basic objects, see the
>> 'base' package under *Packages*" on the help.start() index page
>> would be helpful.
PBR> But (as I originally pointed out), that is not a correct
PBR> interpretation of `basic'. It might have been in R 1.8.0, but
PBR> the 'base' package is now intended to support only some scripting
PBR> operations (where speed is essential so it is minimal). Unlike
PBR> Python, R is not primarily a scripting language.
Oh -- I understand; thank you. In retrospect, I was looking for the
things clueless (or cluefull) newcomers should be familiar with before
coming and bothering R-help with clueless newcomer questions.
I didn't mean to try your patience -- just to suggest a couple of
links in the documentation so that well-written information that
exists, and that *ought* to hit newcomers like a brick, would in fact
hit us like a brick.
PBR> The analogue of the Python Standard Library is I think the
PBR> standard packages.
Thank you! That's helpful.
--
Patricia J. Hawkins
Hawkins Internet Applications
www.hawkinsia.com
"blundering through software language manuals since 1979"