[R] My remark on libraries

[Eric Lecoutre]

Hi R community,

These days, I am writing some functions to work with 2-ways frequency tables ; you know all this tuff about measures of association: Chisq and derived (phi, cramer's v), tau b, tau c, somer's d and so on.

So I consider all those functions could be gathered in a single R file, as they are coherent and dealing with the same problem / objective (analysis of crosstables). Nervertheless, I wouldn't say there is here enough stuff to juystify the creation of a library. First, there is here few material, second it is not enough to cover the practical problem; which should be the goal of a library.

In fact, I have also lot of others splitted files with R code suitable for different purposes. And I could easily imagine I am not the only one among R programmers... And at the end, this is pity that I can't share this code (and BTW that I can't benefit of other's one!)

I though the solution was to deliver my own (eric)misc library, you know... But then we would rapidly be overcome by all miscmisc from world, and it would be difficult to find specific functions with all that libraries.

To me, a possible solution would be to have a page on CRAN listing such R files. Then, everyone would be able to upload R files with a short comment (what does the functions do). I am thinking about something less "strict" than libraries: for that, no reason to test the code (programmer's responsability). Then, maybe sometimes there would be enough pieces of code on a statistical subject to justify the creation of a library (still with the mind: a library is a collection of tools designed to help on a precise situation).

While I'm at it, it would also be nice to have a shared page on screenshots/graphics. For sure, I really enjoy to use R to produce wonderfull graphics. Not only would it be nice sometimes to show them, but it would also be the occasion to demonstrate R possibilities for newcomers (think on color graphics including mathematics). R would never have enough publicity!

Eric


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Eric Lecoutre Informaticien/Statisticien
Institut de Statistique UCL

(+32) (0)10 47 30 50
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ISpersonnel/lecoutre
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Le vrai danger, ce n'est pas quand les ordinateurs
penseront comme des hommes, c'est quand les hommes
penseront comme des ordinateurs. Sydney Harris

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