[R] Documenting data

[Pito Salas]

I am studying statistics and using R in doing it. I come from software development where we document everything we do.

As I “massage” my data, adding columns to a frame, computing on other data, perhaps cleaning, I feel the need to document in detail what the meaning, or background, or calculations, or whatever of the data is. After all it is now derived from my raw data (which may have been well documented) but it is “new.” 

Is this a real problem? Is there a “best practice” to address this?

Thanks!

Pito Salas
Brandeis Computer Science
Feldberg 131