Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
Ajay ohri wrote: An amusing afterthought : What is a rival software (ahem!) was planting this, hoping for a divide between S and R communities.or at the very minimum hoping for some amusement. an assumption or even a pretense of stealing credit is one of the easiest ways of sparking intellectual discord Most users of softwares don't really care about who gets credit ( Who wrote Windows Vista ,or Mac OS or Ubuntu Linux), and the NYT is a newspaper not a journal. Does any student, or teacher for that matter care whether Newton or Leibntiz invented calculas. supposed to be funny? type citation() in r, you'll read: We have invested a lot of time and effort in creating R, please cite it when using it for data analysis. See also ‘citation(pkgname)’ for citing R packages. why care whether newton or leibnitz invented calculus? why care who has invested a lot of time and effort in this or that? vQ __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
Wacek, If you have bug reports for a contributed package please take them up with the maintainer, not the list. -thomas On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Wacek Kusnierczyk wrote: Ajay ohri wrote: An amusing afterthought : What is a rival software (ahem!) was planting this, hoping for a divide between S and R communities.or at the very minimum hoping for some amusement. an assumption or even a pretense of stealing credit is one of the easiest ways of sparking intellectual discord Most users of softwares don't really care about who gets credit ( Who wrote Windows Vista ,or Mac OS or Ubuntu Linux), and the NYT is a newspaper not a journal. Does any student, or teacher for that matter care whether Newton or Leibntiz invented calculas. supposed to be funny? type citation() in r, you'll read: We have invested a lot of time and effort in creating R, please cite it when using it for data analysis. See also ‘citation(pkgname)’ for citing R packages. why care whether newton or leibnitz invented calculus? why care who has invested a lot of time and effort in this or that? vQ __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. Thomas Lumley Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics tlum...@u.washington.eduUniversity of Washington, Seattle __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
If you have bug reports for a contributed package please take them up with the maintainer, not the list. Of course, Wacek is right. His observations being made with a customary needle-like precision. It's that old conundrum about how to have your cake and still eat it. Regards to all, Mark. Thomas Lumley wrote: Wacek, If you have bug reports for a contributed package please take them up with the maintainer, not the list. -thomas On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Wacek Kusnierczyk wrote: Ajay ohri wrote: An amusing afterthought : What is a rival software (ahem!) was planting this, hoping for a divide between S and R communities.or at the very minimum hoping for some amusement. an assumption or even a pretense of stealing credit is one of the easiest ways of sparking intellectual discord Most users of softwares don't really care about who gets credit ( Who wrote Windows Vista ,or Mac OS or Ubuntu Linux), and the NYT is a newspaper not a journal. Does any student, or teacher for that matter care whether Newton or Leibntiz invented calculas. supposed to be funny? type citation() in r, you'll read: We have invested a lot of time and effort in creating R, please cite it when using it for data analysis. See also ‘citation(pkgname)’ for citing R packages. why care whether newton or leibnitz invented calculus? why care who has invested a lot of time and effort in this or that? vQ __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. Thomas Lumley Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics tlum...@u.washington.edu University of Washington, Seattle __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/The-Origins-of-R-AND-CALCULUS-tp21846099p21847724.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
Does any student, or teacher for that matter care whether Newton or
Leibntiz
invented calculas.
Students or teachers may not care, but Newton and Leibniz themselves were
pretty bitter about who should get credit for what.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_v._Leibniz_calculus_controversy
I think this whole debate has gotten rather silly. The original article
was targetted at non-techies, and provided at reasonable summary of what R
does for that audience. The followup clarified on the history of R. As
for Ashley Vance's journalism, well, he's more qualified to write about
software than most, being the former editor of The Register. Hopefully,
this storm-in-a-teacup will blow over soon.
Regards,
Richie.
Mathematical Sciences Unit
HSL
ATTENTION:
This message contains privileged and confidential inform...{{dropped:20}}
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Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
Mark Difford wrote: It would have been very easy for Mr. Vance to have written: John M. Chambers, a former Bell Labs researcher who is now a consulting professor of statistics at Stanford University, was an early champion. At Bell Labs, Mr. Chambers had helped develop S, THE PROTOTYPE OF R, which was meant to give researchers of all stripes an accessible data analysis tool. ...except that it would be wrong in about as many ways. (In fact, referring to S (v.3) as the prototype was an internal R Core joke for quite a while.) Two major points: - S-PLUS was at the time a strong commercial product, not a prototype of anything, and calling it that would be disrespectful to quite a few people working for and with StatSci/Insightful/TIBCO and their international distributors, as well as the Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies group. It couldn't touch the dinosaurs SAS and SPSS, but it did reach a level of more than 10 licenced users. It took several years for R to get to a credibility level where it was even known outside some narrow academic circles. - S compatibility was not a primary goal of R. The original plan was for a Scheme-like language with syntactic sugar making in not unlike S. The potential for running existing S scripts with minimal modifications drove R much closer to S than originally anticipated. This of course does not mean that the current R should not acknowledge its substantial S heritage, just that if you want to describe the early history of R accurately, you do need to choose your words rather more carefully. -- O__ Peter Dalgaard Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~ - (p.dalga...@biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907 __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
Peter Dalgaard wrote: This of course does not mean that the current R should not acknowledge its substantial S heritage, just that if you want to describe the early history of R accurately, you do need to choose your words rather more carefully. Point taken, Peter. But I wan't trying to give an accurate portrayal of the origins of R. That was Mr. Vance's obligation. I was attempting to show how easy it would be for someone who is a writer by profession to make reasonable, and proper, reference to R's substantial S heritage..., as you yourself put it. And that, really, I feel, is the point. Peter Dalgaard wrote: Mark Difford wrote: It would have been very easy for Mr. Vance to have written: John M. Chambers, a former Bell Labs researcher who is now a consulting professor of statistics at Stanford University, was an early champion. At Bell Labs, Mr. Chambers had helped develop S, THE PROTOTYPE OF R, which was meant to give researchers of all stripes an accessible data analysis tool. ...except that it would be wrong in about as many ways. (In fact, referring to S (v.3) as the prototype was an internal R Core joke for quite a while.) Two major points: - S-PLUS was at the time a strong commercial product, not a prototype of anything, and calling it that would be disrespectful to quite a few people working for and with StatSci/Insightful/TIBCO and their international distributors, as well as the Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies group. It couldn't touch the dinosaurs SAS and SPSS, but it did reach a level of more than 10 licenced users. It took several years for R to get to a credibility level where it was even known outside some narrow academic circles. - S compatibility was not a primary goal of R. The original plan was for a Scheme-like language with syntactic sugar making in not unlike S. The potential for running existing S scripts with minimal modifications drove R much closer to S than originally anticipated. This of course does not mean that the current R should not acknowledge its substantial S heritage, just that if you want to describe the early history of R accurately, you do need to choose your words rather more carefully. -- O__ Peter Dalgaard Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~ - (p.dalga...@biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907 __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/The-Origins-of-R-AND-CALCULUS-tp21846099p21849958.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS
Now that is an interesting line, Ajay, and may help to defuse some frayed tempers. Newton, of course, minded very much. And that, really, is the heart of the matter. For R-people (and I am one of them, so I don't use the term pejoratively), clearly, mind very much, too. But only about part of the story, it seems. What is rather disconcerting is that they didn't rise up as one, to defend the product in the spirit in which it was created. That is, from its origins upwards, and roundly condemn a misleading article. It would have been very easy for Mr. Vance to have written: John M. Chambers, a former Bell Labs researcher who is now a consulting professor of statistics at Stanford University, was an early champion. At Bell Labs, Mr. Chambers had helped develop S, THE PROTOTYPE OF R, which was meant to give researchers of all stripes an accessible data analysis tool. Rather than what he did write: John M. Chambers, a former Bell Labs researcher who is now a consulting professor of statistics at Stanford University, was an early champion. At Bell Labs, Mr. Chambers had helped develop S, another statistics software project, which was meant to give researchers of all stripes an accessible data analysis tool. Regards, Mark. Ajay ohri wrote: An amusing afterthought : What is a rival software (ahem!) was planting this, hoping for a divide between S and R communities.or at the very minimum hoping for some amusement. an assumption or even a pretense of stealing credit is one of the easiest ways of sparking intellectual discord Most users of softwares don't really care about who gets credit ( Who wrote Windows Vista ,or Mac OS or Ubuntu Linux), and the NYT is a newspaper not a journal. Does any student, or teacher for that matter care whether Newton or Leibntiz invented calculas. On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Mark Difford mark_diff...@yahoo.co.ukwrote: I think that all appeared on January 8 in Vance's blog posting, with a comment on it by David M Smith on Jan 9. So those people have -27 days Then there was no need for vituperative comments (not from you, of course): simply point doubters to the right place, as you have done. But Mr. Vance's comments only deepen the mystery. If Mr. Vance was aware of the true origins of R, why did he choose to misrepresent them in his article, which is what got the publicity and which is the item that most people saw/read? Most right-thinking people don't, wouldn't, or haven't taken the matter further than that. Their criticisms, as mine have been, have been aimed at the NY Times and Mr. Vance's lack of ethics. It also seems clear from Mr. Vance's comments that there was no editorial or sub-editorial meddling. The knee-jerk reaction ? Well, it is almost amusing to see how sensitive some very hard-nosed individuals on this list can be, or have become. Regards, Mark. still to wait. Duncan Murdoch-2 wrote: On 2/4/2009 3:53 PM, Mark Difford wrote: Indeed. The postings exuded a tabloid-esque level of slimy nastiness. Hi Rolf, It is good to have clarification, for you wrote ..,the postings..., tarring everyone with the same brush. And it was quite a nasty brush. It also is conjecture that this was due to an editor or sub-editor, i.e. the botched article. I think that what some people are waiting for are factual statements from the parties concerned. Conjecture is, well, little more than conjecture. I think that all appeared on January 8 in Vance's blog posting, with a comment on it by David M Smith on Jan 9. So those people have -27 days still to wait. Duncan Murdoch Regards, Mark. Rolf Turner-3 wrote: On 4/02/2009, at 8:15 PM, Mark Difford wrote: Indeed. The postings exuded a tabloid-esque level of slimy nastiness. Indeed, indeed. But I do not feel that that is necessarily the case. Credit should be given where credit is due. And that, I believe is the issue that is getting (some) people hot and bothered. Certainly, Trevor Hastie in his reply to the NY Times article, was not too happy with this aspect of the story. Granted, his comments were not made on this list, but the objection is essentially the same. I would not call what he had to say Mischief making or smacking of a tabloid-esque level of slimy nastiness. The knee- jerk reaction seems to be that this is a criticism of R. It is not. It is a criticism of a poorly researched article. It also is an undeniable and inescapable fact that most S code runs in R. The problem is not with criticism of the NY Times article, although as Pat Burns and others have pointed out this criticism was somewhat misdirected and unrealistic considering the exigencies of newspaper editing. The problem was with a number of posts that cast aspersions upon the integrity of Ihaka and Gentleman. It is these posts that exuded tabloid-esque slimy
