I just read paul murrell's new book, R graphics. now, I have always used the traditional graphics system. apparently, the new (trellis?) system is an entirely separate graphics system. after reading the book, I cannot figure out what the intrinsic capability advantage of the old graphics system is that cannot be replicated in the trellis system.
if the new system's capabilities are practically a subset of the old system, why don't we design a compatibility layer so that we can just have one graphics subsystem, instead? it seems weird that newbies learn the standard system first, and then, instead of building on it with more complex functions, are told to forget about things and start with something new. I do like the simplicity of learning of the old system, but this would be the same if it were to come through a compatibility layer, too. and then it would be easy to build learning on it. but maybe I have it all wrong. maybe there is something unique about the old system that the new system cannot do. curious: what is it? I also found the naming of the new system confusing. there is trellis, there is lattice, there is grid. how exactly should the new system be called? paul calls the old system "traditional." the new one seems to rear its head in different forms. some other opinions (which follow the old rule that everyone has one): * if we had one graphics subsystem, paul's book, and for this matter any explanation of the R graphics system, would become more parsimonious. * R is, IMHO, the premier "programmed graphics" package today. I may be complaining, but I also recognize that it is great. so, please consider this to be only a suggestion. * we have a pixmap image function. we should also have a pdf includegraphics function, which can import an existing graphics image. if a device (X11) is incapable of displaying it, we should just display a rectangle of the bounding box. this would open up even more avenues to the ability of R to create graphics. regards, /ivo ______________________________________________ [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
