Difference between gam() and loess().

<snip>

I also tried a number of other things including changing the  
"family", and parameters in
"loess.control", but to no avail.  I looked at the Fortran codes  
from both loess and gam.
They are daunting, to say the least. They are dense, and there are  
absolutely no comments
whatsoever.  But one thing is clear - they are using different  
Fortran codes.

Thanks for doing this digging.  It would on this basis be not  
unreasonable
	to expect there to be numerical differences in the result.

So, the best bet might be to get Trevor Hastie or Bill Cleveland to  
help you out.

But, before that:  why is this an issue, Rolf?  Is it important  
that these two results
be identical?

It just makes me nervous when two procedures which I believe to be  
doing the
	same thing give answers which are not identical.  Such a phenomenon  
makes me
	wonder if there is something which I am not understanding, and if  
thereby my
	lack of understanding might lead to my making serious errors.

	A lack of understanding is an all-to-frequent occurrence in my  
circumstances
	(i.e. being thick as two short planks) and I therefore need to be  
constantly
	on my guard against such a lack.

	In the current setting I think I will desist from pursuing the issue  
any further
	and just assume that different coding accounts for the different  
results.  And
	take a valium.

		cheers,

			Rolf Turner

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