I'm a big advocate -- perhaps even fanatic -- of making R easier for novices in order to spread its use, but I'm not convinced that a GUI (at least in the traditional form) is the most valuable approach.
Perhaps an overly harsh summary of some of Ted Harding's statements is: You can make a truck easier to get into by taking off the wheels, but that doesn't make it more useful.
In terms of GUIs, I think what R should focus on is the ability for user's to make their own specialized GUI. So that a knowledgeable programmer at an installation can create a system that is easy for unsophisticated users for the limited number of tasks that are to be done. The ultimate users may not even need to know that R exists.
I think Ted Harding was on the mark when he said that it is the help system that needs enhancement. I can imagine a system that gets the user to the right function and then helps fill in the arguments; all of the time pointing them towards the command line rather than away from it.
The author of the referenced article highlighted some hidden costs of R,
but did not highlight the hidden benefits (because they were hidden from
him). A big benefit of R is all of the bugs that aren't in it (which may or
may not be due to its free status).
Patrick Burns
Burns Statistics [EMAIL PROTECTED] +44 (0)20 8525 0696 http://www.burns-stat.com (home of S Poetry and "A Guide for the Unwilling S User")
Jan P. Smit wrote:
Dear Phillippe,
Very interesting. The URL of the article is http://www.scientific-computing.com/scwsepoct04free_statistics.html.
Best regards,
Jan Smit
Philippe Grosjean wrote:
Hello,
In the latest 'Scientific Computing World' magazine (issue 78, p. 22), there
is a review on free statistical software by Felix Grant ("doesn't have to
pay good money to obtain good statistics software"). As far as I know, this
is the first time that R is even mentioned in this magazine, given that it
usually discuss commercial products.
[ ...]
I really agree with you Patrick. To me the keys are having better help search capabilities, linking help files to case studies or at least detailed examples, having a navigator by keywords (a rudimentary one is at http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/s/finder/finder.html), having a great library of examples keyed by statistical goals (a la BUGS examples guides), and having a menu-driven skeleton code generator that gives beginners a starting script to edit to use their variable names, etc. Also I think we need a discussion board that has a better "memory" for new users, like some of the user forums currently on the web, or using a wiki.
Frank
--
Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine
Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
