On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Donald Winston <satchwins...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Who decides what features are in R and how they are implemented? If there is > someone here who has that authority I have this request: > > A report() function analogous to the plot() function that makes it easy to > generate a report from a table of data. This should not be in some auxiliary > package, but part of the core R just like plot(). As a long time SAS user I > cannot believe R does not have this. Please don't give me any crap about > Sweave, LaTex, and the "power" of R to roll your own. You don't have to "roll > your own" plot do you? Reports are no different. If you don't agree do not > bother me. If you agree then please bring this request to the appropriate > authorities for consideration or tell me how to do it. > > Thanks. > [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
Dear Donald: I've wondered about your question about "how do things get into R." It seems to me the tone of your post pissed people off and they are giving you some abuse. By telling you to write it yourself, they are expressing their frustration toward you. Really, though, you have only yourself to blame for that. You treat the readers like your employees. I think the nicer answer might go along these lines. 1. I recently suggested code to patch R in this list and one of the readers pointed me to this note in R-FAQ, which seems to be about as close as you are going to get to a "request". "There is a section of the bug repository for suggestions for enhancements for R labelled ‘wishlist’. Suggestions can be submitted in the same ways as bugs, but please ensure that the subject line makes clear that this is for the wishlist and not a bug report, for example by starting with ‘Wishlist:’. " 2. How do you suppose plot got into R? Somebody volunteered it, it worked nicely, and many people have improved and perfected it over the years. If you could give us a working version of "report", the same might happen. 3. I hate SAS report. You should too. It stinks. We don't need that. It is for boneheads. You don't even tell us what is good about report or give us an example. Or a link to an example. 4. In the R family, there are many functions like report that you should try. Please note the function "summary" is supplied by almost all modeling tools. It is supposed to do roughly what you want. Does it have too much information or too little? There are several ways to beautify that output. Try xtable. It can make html or LaTeX. I wonder if the memisc package function mtable does what you want. It collects up a bunch of regressions for you in a nice looking table? I've found very useful. I don't know what your objection is against LaTeX, incidentally. Similar tables can be created with packages. Hmisc and apsrtable Good luck, next time don't tell us to go to hell when you ask your question. pj -- Paul E. Johnson Professor, Political Science 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504 University of Kansas ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
