[R] R Documentation(s)

[Ko-Kang Wang]

Emmanuel Paradis wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am interested by the various messages sent to the r-help mailing list
> these last few days about documentation on R. Yet, there are a lot of
> issues actually open on this topic, and it is not clear to me what is the
> "urgent need for documentation" on R.

I agree.  The online help is extremely useful.  However, and it's just my personal
opinion, some documentation for advanced user on how to write new R functions, more
advanced R features...maybe quite useful.

>
>
> R comes with the 'Introduction to R' by Venables et al. I recommend the
> colleagues and students in my lab who are interested in R to read it.
> Surely, this is not sufficient to use R efficiently, but I found using the
> 'Intro to R' with the on-line help (text and html) a good combination to
> run analyses and write programs. But this could reflect the fact that I
> still use R at a relatively low level; more experienced users may have a
> different opinion.
>
> I have produced myself a short introduction to R for the postgrad students
> here (so it is in French), and understand that similar documents have been
> produced elsewhere. Would it be useful to put something together?
>
> To me, the greatest issue is the audience targeted by a documentation. Many
> specialists are potentially interested by R, from the top-statisticians to
> the users who hardly knows about statistics but need to run some tests (at
> least to publish their results). It seems to me that some queries on the
> list have more to do with "using statistics" than with "using R". As long
> as non-statisticians use R (like me), this seems inevitable.
>
> Another issue is about languages (human ones, not computer ones): is there
> a need to translate R docs?

It will definitely be needed.  I joined the R mailing list about 2 months ago and
have since seen lots of users from Taiwan.  Actually, there are LOTS of Chinese
people around the world who use R (there is no doubt about it, given that there are
so many Chinese people around).

It will be great if we can start of having a Chinese translation?  I'll be quite
happy to do it, but if I'm the only one doing it it will take quite some time to
translate the whole "An Introduction to R" into Chinese...

>
>
> Finally, is it possible to set a system of documentation that is able to
> track the development of the software? I am personnally impressed by the
> pace of release of new versions of R.
>
> These are just some quick thoughts.
>
> Best wishes to all,
>
> Emmanuel Paradis
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--
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 Ko-Kang Wang
 Undergraduate Student
 Computer Science/Statistics Double Major
 University of Auckland
 Auckland 1005
 New Zealand
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