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rpart vs. randomForest

2 messages · chumpmonkey@hushmail.com, Martin Maechler

chumpmonkey@hushmail.com
# 
Greetings. I'm trying to determine whether to use rpart or randomForest
for a classification tree. Has anybody tested efficacy formally? I've
run both and the confusion matrix for rf beats rpart. I've looking at
the rf help page and am unable to figure out how to extract the tree.
But more than that I'm looking for a more comprehensive user's guide
for randomForest including the benefits on using it with MDS. Can anybody
suggest a general guide? I've been finding a lot of broken links and
cs-type of web pages rather than an end-user's guide. Also people's experience
on adjusting the mtry param would be useful. Breiman says that it isn't
too sensitive but I'm curious if anybody has had a different experience
with it. Thanks in advance and apologies if this is too general.



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1 day later
Martin Maechler
# 
Anonymous> Greetings. I'm trying to determine whether to use
    Anonymous> rpart or randomForest for a classification
    Anonymous> tree. Has anybody tested efficacy formally? I've
    Anonymous> run both and the confusion matrix for rf beats
    Anonymous> rpart. I've looking at the rf help page and am
    Anonymous> unable to figure out how to extract the tree.
    Anonymous> But more than that I'm looking for a more
    Anonymous> comprehensive user's guide for randomForest
    Anonymous> including the benefits on using it with MDS. Can
    Anonymous> anybody suggest a general guide? I've been
    Anonymous> finding a lot of broken links and cs-type of web
    Anonymous> pages rather than an end-user's guide. Also
    Anonymous> people's experience on adjusting the mtry param
    Anonymous> would be useful. Breiman says that it isn't too
    Anonymous> sensitive but I'm curious if anybody has had a
    Anonymous> different experience with it. Thanks in advance
    Anonymous> and apologies if this is too general.


If you really read Breiman, or alternatively, remember English,
you'll know that a forest has many trees...

Regards,
Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>	http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/