On 5/10/2006 12:15 PM, Jan T. Kim wrote: > On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 11:26:55AM -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote: >> On 5/10/2006 11:10 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: >> > On 5/10/06, Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >> What is it that you find objectionable about having a default for the >> >> file argument in read.table? I think Martin has said that he doesn't >> >> want non-UI functions to be involved with UI functions, but I don't see >> >> that: if your code works now, it will be completely unaffected by >> >> setting a default for the argument. (Sorry if I summarized the argument >> >> incorrectly, Martin, I didn't look it up.) >> > >> > That would be my objection too. UI should not be tied to the non-UI core. >> > Its basically a loose coupling argument. >> >> I don't accept that argument, because in R everything* is interactive. >> There isn't a non-UI core. The function arguments are part of the user >> interface. > > It seems to me that there might be a misunderstanding here; as the term > "user" is used to refer to a person interacting with the computer on > the one hand, and to refer to a programmer using R on the other hand.
One of the design goals of S and R is to blur the distinction between users and programmers. It is a continuum. R is designed to gently urge non-programmers to become programmers, because the designers think that's the way statistical computing should be done. > Everything being "part of the user interface", in the sense of > every user-visible function being part of the API, does not and should > not imply that everything should be interactive. No, I didn't suggest that. What I was suggesting is that it should be *convenient* to use read.table interactively, not that it should be required. (It's already possible, but not convenient, especially for a beginner who doesn't know the secret incantation.) > In my experience, interactivity is a rather double-edged thing: On the > one hand, it facilitates learning and exploration, but on the other > hand, its improper use is frequently detrimental to reproducibility of > scientific computation. I definitely agree with that. It should be convenient to use R non-interactively as well. Anyone who wants reproducibility should be writing packages and scripts or vignettes that run non-interactively. That's why I am emphasizing that this change will have no effect on existing code. I wouldn't suggest it if it did. 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
