Rlight, a simplified version of R for very basic tools

Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-sig-teaching-
> bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Christophe Genolini
> Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 5:03 AM
> To: r-sig-teaching at r-project.org
> Subject: [R-sig-teaching] Rlight, a simplified version of R for very
> basic tools
> 
> Hi the list,
> 
> _**** In short ****__* *_
> R is too complex for basic level non statistician students especially
> when they compare it to the %$*#& Excel. It could be interesting to
> create a package that would propose the very basic tools with a very
> simplified structure.
> 
> 
> _**** More precisely ****__* *_
> Reading this list, I have the feeling that R is less and less for
> specialist, more and more for occasional users. On my side, I am
> teaching R to sports student... Statistics is definitely NOT their
> favorite topic. They just need to be basic user: they need to know how
> to compute a mean, median, some basic test (parametric or not), some
> regression. They also need to be able to deal with real data with
> missing value.
> To their point of vu (point of vu that I share most of the time), one
> major difficulty in R is the "non uniformity" of syntaxes:
> 
> - Why does median not work on ordered factor?
> - Why does cor(age,size,na.rm=TRUE) not work?
> - Why does summary report the quartiles but not the standard deviation?
> - Why is it t.test(age~groupe) and cor.test(age,size)?
> - Why is it boxplot(age) and barplot(table(age))?
> - Why is it as.numeric but ordered?
> - Sir, we hate changing the working directory and using the %$*#&
> function "read.csv". Why not stopping working on R and start using
> Excel
> again, like in all other classes with all the other teachers? (I do NOT
> share this one :-) )
> - ...
> 
> The calculation of a statistics relatively to a specific modality (like
> calculation of the mean(size) but only for men then for women) is also
> a
> basic needs, one of the first things they want to do. But
> unfortunately,
> it is very complicated: it needs the introduction of vector, logical
> operator, lines selection using a logical vector. And every syntax
> mistake is fatal. Under Excel, you need to know how to sort the data,
> then use the function "=mean"...
> 
> It is why I start to create a package (called "R light" but that can
> change) that would propose a simplified and more uniform version of the
> tool that low levels user need (call the "light tools"?). The syntax
> could be very simple but should suffer NO exception:
> 
> function(variable) : works on a variable
> function(variable~groups): works on a variable relatively to each group
> modality.
> Then Lmean will compute the mean, Lvar will compute the variance,
> Lmedian the median and so on.
> 
> *_*** Examples *** _*
> >  age <- c(15,16,18,15,16,12)
> >  groups <- c("M","F","M","F","M","F")
> 
> >  Lmean(age)
> [1] 15.33333
> Lmean(age~groups)
>        F        M
> 14.33333 16.33333
> 
> >  Lvar(age)
>  [1] 3.866667
> 
> >  Lvar(age~groups)
>        F        M
> 4.333333 2.333333
> 
> >  marks <- ordered("A","B","A","C","B","C",levels=c("C","B","A"))
> >  Lmedian(marks)
> [1] B
> Levels: C < B < A
> >  Lmedian(marks~groups)
> F M
> C A
> Levels: C < B < A
> 
> 
> That way, R would be simpler than Excel...
> 
> 
> *_*** What next? *** _*
> So I start to create the package but it takes me a lot of time (like
> always when creating a package). Since this can be useful for a lot of
> R
> teacher, I think that some people might be interested in collaborating
> on this project. Several needs:
> 
> - Brain storming on what should be in Rlight: What are the tools those
> basic users that know nothing on computing and not that much on
> statistics do need?
> - Brain storming on the syntax: I define "function(variable)" and
> "function(variable~groups)", some other syntax might be interesting
> specially for more advance concept.
> - Writing documentation: well you guess it by reading this email, I am
> NOT a native English speaker...
> - Writing some L function.
> 
> You will find the code that already exists and some tests here:
> http://christophe.genolini.free.fr/aTelecharger/Rlight.r
> 
> 
> 
> Christophe Genolini
> 
> Associate professor
>       University of Paris X
>       INSERM U699
> R package maintainer:
>      - r2lUniv
>      - kml
> R Tutorial (on CRAN):
>      - A (Not So) Short Introduction to S4
>      - Petit Manuel de S4
>      - Lire; Compter ; Tester... avec R
>      - Construire un Package
>      - R, bonnes pratiques
> 
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