Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
Andrew, Here's is a way how your example could be coded with the current implementation of plot. You can always start with an empty plot and then add lines or points (or both) using the corresponding functions. x - seq(-2, 2, 0.1) plot(x, x, type=n) mapply(function(f, i) lines(x, f(x), col=i), functions, 1:3) The current approach saves specification of a couple of parameters that would otherwise had to be specified, since lines(...) would be equivalent to plot(..., type=l, add=TRUE), and I think that this adds to clarity. -Christos -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Clausen Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 12:05 AM To: Duncan Murdoch Cc: R-devel@r-project.org Subject: Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default() Hi Duncan, On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 08:51:23AM -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote: The add parameter only interacts with other parameters superficially -- some parameters of plot (like log) are related to the shape of the axes, and should be inherited from what is on the plot already. I'd say causing some parameters to be completely ignored without a warning is more than a superficial interaction. Fair enough. I suppose you could inadvertantly put leave add=TRUE in some code, and wonder why axes aren't getting drawn. Really, add=TRUE is not a great design: it would be better to say plot methods draw a new plot (so they need args for all the decorations like axes, titles, etc.), and have other ways to add things to plots. I don't like the idea of having a separate way to add to plots. I like the look of this code: f - function(x) x^2 g - function(x) 1/x - 1 h - function(x) x functions - c(f, g, h) for (i in 1:length(functions)) plot(functions[[i]], add=i1, col=i) Of course, I'd prefer something like plot.new() for (i in 1:length(functions)) plot(functions[[i]], add=TRUE, col=i) but that seems out of reach for compatibility reasons. How would you write this code in R today? Hadley was right on this, his ggplot2 has a better thought-out design than classic graphics. However, we have what we have. I'm sure ggplot2 is vastly better, although I couldn't find a quick intro. (Typing ggplot2 examples into Google didn't help me.) Since plot() isn't deprecated yet, it's worth making cheap useful improvements. I agree. Adding an add=FALSE parameter to plot() would generate errors for methods that don't implement it, so they would all have to be changed simultaneously, including in private/unreleased code. So I'd like to settle for second best: adding add=FALSE parameters to many plot methods. I like that suggestion better than adding it here and there, one at a time. So, to advance the discussion: can you take a look at the plot methods that are in the base and recommended packages, and work out how many already have it, how many would be improved if it was added, and in how many cases it just wouldn't make sense? (You could also do this on all the CRAN and Bioconductor packages, but that would be about 100 times more work: about 50 times as many packages, and much less consistency in the programming and documentation standards. Maybe on a subset of popular ones, e.g. those that Rcmdr suggests?) I had a quick look at the base packages. (I did a crude search with find and grep on the R source tarball.) I attached the full list. There were 40 files containing plot methods. Of these, 9 already implemented add=TRUE explicitly and a further 9 inherited it from other plot methods that could or already do implement it. There were 2 methods for which it clearly makes no sense. For example, plot.lm makes no sense because it does several separate plots, one after the other. It looks reasonably straightforward to implement most of the remaining methods. I must confess I don't understand what all of these plots are doing from a statistics point of view, but I suppose this shouldn't matter. (Econometrics uses different language...) Data like that could make a convincing argument that the effort of adding this to the base packages is worthwhile. (To get it added to non-base packages will require you to convince their maintainers that it's a good idea.) Another helpful part of the argument will be for you to volunteer to do the work of both code and documentation updates. I'm not very excited about doing work outside of base. I can do the base code + documentation though. Any volunteers? Cheers, Andrew __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
On 3/9/2008 5:58 PM, Andrew Clausen wrote: On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 04:04:08PM -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote: Part of the reason I didn't like your patch is that it was incomplete: it didn't patch the plot.default.Rd file. Fair enough -- I wasn't sure whether I was fixing a bug or not. (... spreads the documentation around a bit.) That function already has around 16 parameters; do we really want to add another one, that interacts with some of the ones that are there? Yes. The ability to plot things on top of each other is important. The simplicity created by having a single interface for adding to plots outweighs the complexity of yet another parameter. The add parameter only interacts with other parameters superficially -- some parameters of plot (like log) are related to the shape of the axes, and should be inherited from what is on the plot already. I'd say causing some parameters to be completely ignored without a warning is more than a superficial interaction. Really, add=TRUE is not a great design: it would be better to say plot methods draw a new plot (so they need args for all the decorations like axes, titles, etc.), and have other ways to add things to plots. Hadley was right on this, his ggplot2 has a better thought-out design than classic graphics. However, we have what we have. What you really seem to want is to add it to the generic plot(), Agreed. but it's way too late to go modifying that particular generic. I agree. Adding an add=FALSE parameter to plot() would generate errors for methods that don't implement it, so they would all have to be changed simultaneously, including in private/unreleased code. So I'd like to settle for second best: adding add=FALSE parameters to many plot methods. I like that suggestion better than adding it here and there, one at a time. So, to advance the discussion: can you take a look at the plot methods that are in the base and recommended packages, and work out how many already have it, how many would be improved if it was added, and in how many cases it just wouldn't make sense? (You could also do this on all the CRAN and Bioconductor packages, but that would be about 100 times more work: about 50 times as many packages, and much less consistency in the programming and documentation standards. Maybe on a subset of popular ones, e.g. those that Rcmdr suggests?) Data like that could make a convincing argument that the effort of adding this to the base packages is worthwhile. (To get it added to non-base packages will require you to convince their maintainers that it's a good idea.) Another helpful part of the argument will be for you to volunteer to do the work of both code and documentation updates. Duncan Murdoch __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
I think you can use par(new = T) here: f - function(x) x^2 X - seq(0, 1, by=1/4) plot(f, col=blue) par(new = T) plot(X, f(X), col=red, type=l, xlab=, ylab=) On 09/03/2008, Andrew Clausen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi all, As long as I've used R, add=TRUE hasn't worked in contexts like this: f - function(x) x^2 X - seq(0, 1, by=1/4) plot(f, col=blue) plot(X, f(X), col=red, type=l, add=TRUE) I attached a fix for version 2.6.2. Cheers, Andrew -- Henrique Dallazuanna Curitiba-Paraná-Brasil 25° 25' 40 S 49° 16' 22 O __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
On 08/03/2008 10:11 PM, Andrew Clausen wrote: Hi all, As long as I've used R, add=TRUE hasn't worked in contexts like this: f - function(x) x^2 X - seq(0, 1, by=1/4) plot(f, col=blue) plot(X, f(X), col=red, type=l, add=TRUE) I attached a fix for version 2.6.2. It has never been claimed that it would work, and as far as I can see, it doesn't make anything easier: the last line could be replaced by lines(X, f(X), col=red) for more clarity from less typing. So why would you want add=TRUE in plot.default? Duncan Murdoch __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
On 09/03/2008 12:46 PM, Andrew Clausen wrote: Hi Duncan, On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 12:11:45PM -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote: It has never been claimed that it would work, and as far as I can see, it doesn't make anything easier: the last line could be replaced by lines(X, f(X), col=red) for more clarity from less typing. So why would you want add=TRUE in plot.default? I don't like lines() because it ONLY allows you to add to plots. I could send a patch for that too... But I also like how plot() is polymorphic. It's nice how you can do some computation -- a regression, a histogram or whatever, and then just call plot() on it, and you have a nice graphical representation of it. But why stop there... wouldn't it be nice if you could stack them on top of each other? It's often useful to compare things by putting them on top of each other. (Are 2 regression lines the same or similar? Are two utility functions the same? etc.) Part of the reason I didn't like your patch is that it was incomplete: it didn't patch the plot.default.Rd file. That function already has around 16 parameters; do we really want to add another one, that interacts with some of the ones that are there? What you really seem to want is to add it to the generic plot(), but it's way too late to go modifying that particular generic. Duncan Murdoch __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 04:04:08PM -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote: Part of the reason I didn't like your patch is that it was incomplete: it didn't patch the plot.default.Rd file. Fair enough -- I wasn't sure whether I was fixing a bug or not. (... spreads the documentation around a bit.) That function already has around 16 parameters; do we really want to add another one, that interacts with some of the ones that are there? Yes. The ability to plot things on top of each other is important. The simplicity created by having a single interface for adding to plots outweighs the complexity of yet another parameter. The add parameter only interacts with other parameters superficially -- some parameters of plot (like log) are related to the shape of the axes, and should be inherited from what is on the plot already. What you really seem to want is to add it to the generic plot(), Agreed. but it's way too late to go modifying that particular generic. I agree. Adding an add=FALSE parameter to plot() would generate errors for methods that don't implement it, so they would all have to be changed simultaneously, including in private/unreleased code. So I'd like to settle for second best: adding add=FALSE parameters to many plot methods. Cheers, Andrew __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 6:27 PM, hadley wickham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes. The ability to plot things on top of each other is important. The simplicity created by having a single interface for adding to plots outweighs the complexity of yet another parameter. The add parameter only interacts with other parameters superficially -- some parameters of plot (like log) are related to the shape of the axes, and should be inherited from what is on the plot already. But what about when the new data is outside the range of the current plot? plot/lines/points already works that way so this is just an interface issue. __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
But what about when the new data is outside the range of the current plot? plot/lines/points already works that way so this is just an interface issue. That may be the way it is, but I don't see how you could argue that it's desirable behaviour. Hadley -- http://had.co.nz/ __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] [patch] add=TRUE in plot.default()
Its not a matter of desirable or not -- its a matter that its a different point. The par(new= ) to get an old graph is completely confusing and its annoying that one has to suddenly switch to lines and points and cannot consistently use plot. That remains true whether or not there is auto expansion. On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 7:51 PM, hadley wickham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But what about when the new data is outside the range of the current plot? plot/lines/points already works that way so this is just an interface issue. That may be the way it is, but I don't see how you could argue that it's desirable behaviour. Hadley -- http://had.co.nz/ __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
