> From: Patrick Burns > > I think John has exactly the right image -- index to a book -- > but I disagree with his conclusions. > > I read somewhere that an index should not be done by the > author. It was probably written by someone who was bored > of indexing, but the logic was precisely because indices should > be about concepts. The author of a package will have one > concept for a function but not all of the concepts that come > from various fields of study. I suspect that no one outside of > finance would think to index "sd" with "volatility" for (a not very > good) example. > > There could be an index builder that accepts a search phrase and > the function or package that is the successful answer to the search. > If this were open, then R users could contribute to the index who > don't feel qualified to submit code. It could also help diffuse the > frustration of taking too long to find a function by allowing a way > to insure that the exact same thing doesn't happen to others. > > Amazon has a function that says those who bought "The Chicago > Manual of Style" also bought Strunk and White.
Would that be the same function that suggested bunch of books on fashion modeling when I look up Frank's book (`Regression Modeling Strategies')? 8-) Andy > In the same way, > the R index could provide a list of terms that overlap the given > search term. For example if we search for "goodness of fit", then > "hypothesis test" might be one of the related terms that pops up. > > No, I'm not volunteering to build the system. > > 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") > > John Fox wrote: > > >Dear Duncan, > > > >I don't think that there is an automatic, nearly costless > way of providing > >an effective solution to locating R resources. The problem > seems to me to be > >analogous to indexing a book. There's an excellent > description of what that > >process *should* look like in the Chicago Manual of Style, > and it's a lot of > >work. In my experience, most book indexes are quite poor, > and automatically > >generated indexes, while not useless, are even worse, since > one should index > >concepts, not words. The ideal indexer is therefore the > author of the book. > > > >I guess that the question boils down to how important is it > to provide an > >analogue of a good index to R? As I said in a previous > message, I believe > >that the current search facilities work pretty well -- about > as well as one > >could expect of an automatic approach. I don't believe that > there's an > >effective centralized solution, so doing something more > ambitious than is > >currently available implies farming out the process to > package authors. Of > >course, there's no guarantee that all package authors will > be diligent > >indexers. > > > >Regards, > > John > > > >-------------------------------- > >John Fox > >Department of Sociology > >McMaster University > >Hamilton, Ontario > >Canada L8S 4M4 > >905-525-9140x23604 > >http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox > >-------------------------------- > > > > > > > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Duncan Murdoch > >>Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 8:55 AM > >>To: Cliff Lunneborg > >>Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >>Subject: Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software? > >> > >>On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:59:23 -0800, "Cliff Lunneborg" > >><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> quoted John Fox: > >> > >> > >> > >>>Why not, as previously has been proposed, replace the > current static > >>>(and, in my view, not very useful) set of keywords in R > >>> > >>> > >>documentation > >> > >> > >>>with the requirement that package authors supply their own > >>> > >>> > >>keywords for > >> > >> > >>>each documented object? I believe that this is the intent of the > >>>concept entries in Rd files, but their use certainly is not > >>> > >>> > >>required or > >> > >> > >>>even actively encouraged. (They're just mentioned in > passing in the > >>>Writing R Extensions manual. > >>> > >>> > >>That would not be easy and won't happen quickly. There are some > >>problems: > >> > >> - The base packages mostly don't use \concept. (E.g. base > >>has 365 man pages, only about 15 of them use it). Adding it > >>to each file is a fairly time-consuming task. > >> > >>- Before we started, we'd need to agree as to what they are for. > >>Right now, I think they are mainly used when the name of a > >>concept doesn't match the name of the function that > >>implements it, e.g. > >>"modulo", "remainder", "promise", "argmin", "assertion". The > >>need for this usage is pretty rare. If they were used for > >>everything, what would they contain? > >> > >> - Keywording in a useful way is hard. There are spelling > >>issues (e.g. optimise versus optimize); our fuzzy matching > >>helps with those. > >>But there are also multiple names for the same thing, and > >>multiple meanings for the same name. > >> > >>Duncan Murdoch > >> > >>______________________________________________ > >>[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 > >> > >> > > > >______________________________________________ > >[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 > > > > > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > [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 > > ______________________________________________ [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