Doug, I found some shelter after months of being bit by git using this (free for non-commercial use) www.syntevo.com/smartgit/
On Friday, February 12, 2016 at 12:49:27 PM UTC-5, Douglas Bates wrote: > > On Thursday, February 11, 2016 at 3:06:45 PM UTC-6, ivo welch wrote: >> >> >> hi doug---and vice-versa. it's interesting that a core function (reading >> a .csv file) would not be in a native julia library. when are you >> switching your students to julia? regards, /iaw >> > > Writing a function to read a .csv file is not trivial - partly because CSV > is not well-defined. It is also the case of an itch getting scratched - if > those working on Julia with the skills to write such a function don't have > a need to read .csv files that particular functionality stagnates. > > The definition and functionality of data frames, which are the natural > output when reading a CSV file, in Julia is still being debated. In R the > choices were much easier because R was designed to emulate S version 3 in > which a data frame was a central construct. Sacrifices in performance were > made to allow for checking for NA's during each atomic arithmetic > operation. That trade-off wouldn't fly in Julia. Also R vector structures > all allow for element names - again at an expense in performance. > > I'm not really in the position to convert my students as I am now an > Emeritus Professor. I do still offer a seminar series on "Statistics with > Julia" and have convinced some students to use Julia in thesis research. > > I would be quite happy with Julia if only git and I got along better. I > just lost three days worth of work this morning because of yet another git > disaster. > >> >> ---- >> Ivo Welch (ivo....@gmail.com) >> http://www.ivo-welch.info/ >> J. Fred Weston Distinguished Professor of Finance >> Anderson School at UCLA, C519 >> Free Finance Textbook, http://book.ivo-welch.info/ >> Exec Editor, Critical Finance Review, >> http://www.critical-finance-review.org/ >> Editor and Publisher, FAMe, http://www.fame-jagazine.com/ >> >> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 12:37 PM, Douglas Bates <dmb...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi Ivo, >>> >>> Good to hear from you. >>> >>> On Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 9:58:37 AM UTC-6, ivo welch wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> ladies and gents---I am not (yet) a julia user. >>>> >>>> may I suggest adding more examples into two places where julia users >>>> will face starting hurdles? >>>> >>>> [1] the I/O docs of julia. like, reading and writing csv files that >>>> are compressed and decompressed on-the-fly, even if not in the ultimate >>>> efficient manner. a large fraction of the time and frustration of new >>>> users is consumed by the task of shoehorning data into and out of new >>>> computer languages. with all of R's problem, the ' d <- >>>> read.csv("f.csv")' >>>> and 'd<-read.csv(pipe(paste("gzcat ", fname)))' reduced this entry >>>> frustration greatly. perhaps xml file reading and writing. perhaps... >>>> >>>> [2] more 'standard task' programs would be great. read a csv file, run >>>> a regression according to variable names on the command line, print >>>> output, >>>> draw a graph. I know there are fragments throughout the docs, but some >>>> section with ready to run complete programs would be good, perhaps at the >>>> end of the manual. >>>> >>>> in a year, I hope to switch my students from R to julia. >>>> >>> >>> My main use of the RCall package is to import datasets from R into >>> Julia. If I have a dataset in an R package I use, e.g. >>> >>> julia> using RCall >>> >>> julia> ds = rcopy("lme4::Dyestuff") >>> 30x2 DataFrames.DataFrame >>> | Row | Batch | Yield | >>> |-----|-------|--------| >>> | 1 | "A" | 1545.0 | >>> | 2 | "A" | 1440.0 | >>> | 3 | "A" | 1440.0 | >>> | 4 | "A" | 1520.0 | >>> | 5 | "A" | 1580.0 | >>> | 6 | "B" | 1540.0 | >>> | 7 | "B" | 1555.0 | >>> | 8 | "B" | 1490.0 | >>> | 9 | "B" | 1560.0 | >>> | 10 | "B" | 1495.0 | >>> | 11 | "C" | 1595.0 | >>> | 12 | "C" | 1550.0 | >>> | 13 | "C" | 1605.0 | >>> | 14 | "C" | 1510.0 | >>> | 15 | "C" | 1560.0 | >>> | 16 | "D" | 1445.0 | >>> | 17 | "D" | 1440.0 | >>> | 18 | "D" | 1595.0 | >>> | 19 | "D" | 1465.0 | >>> | 20 | "D" | 1545.0 | >>> | 21 | "E" | 1595.0 | >>> | 22 | "E" | 1630.0 | >>> | 23 | "E" | 1515.0 | >>> | 24 | "E" | 1635.0 | >>> | 25 | "E" | 1625.0 | >>> | 26 | "F" | 1520.0 | >>> | 27 | "F" | 1455.0 | >>> | 28 | "F" | 1450.0 | >>> | 29 | "F" | 1480.0 | >>> | 30 | "F" | 1445.0 | >>> >>> If I wanted to read a CSV file using the facilities in R I could use >>> >>> julia> rcopy("read.csv('/usr/share/distro-info/debian.csv')") >>> 17x6 DataFrames.DataFrame >>> | Row | version | codename | series | created | >>> release | eol | >>> >>> |-----|---------|----------------|----------------|--------------|--------------|--------------| >>> | 1 | 1.1 | "Buzz" | "buzz" | "1993-08-16" | >>> "1996-06-17" | "1997-06-05" | >>> | 2 | 1.2 | "Rex" | "rex" | "1996-06-17" | >>> "1996-12-12" | "1998-06-05" | >>> | 3 | 1.3 | "Bo" | "bo" | "1996-12-12" | >>> "1997-06-05" | "1999-03-09" | >>> | 4 | 2.0 | "Hamm" | "hamm" | "1997-06-05" | >>> "1998-07-24" | "2000-03-09" | >>> | 5 | 2.1 | "Slink" | "slink" | "1998-07-24" | >>> "1999-03-09" | "2000-10-30" | >>> | 6 | 2.2 | "Potato" | "potato" | "1999-03-09" | >>> "2000-08-15" | "2003-07-30" | >>> | 7 | 3.0 | "Woody" | "woody" | "2000-08-15" | >>> "2002-07-19" | "2006-06-30" | >>> | 8 | 3.1 | "Sarge" | "sarge" | "2002-07-19" | >>> "2005-06-06" | "2008-03-30" | >>> | 9 | 4.0 | "Etch" | "etch" | "2005-06-06" | >>> "2007-04-08" | "2010-02-15" | >>> | 10 | 5.0 | "Lenny" | "lenny" | "2007-04-08" | >>> "2009-02-14" | "2012-02-06" | >>> | 11 | 6.0 | "Squeeze" | "squeeze" | "2009-02-14" | >>> "2011-02-06" | "2014-05-31" | >>> | 12 | 7.0 | "Wheezy" | "wheezy" | "2011-02-06" | >>> "2013-05-04" | "" | >>> | 13 | 8.0 | "Jessie" | "jessie" | "2013-05-04" | >>> "2015-04-25" | "" | >>> | 14 | 9.0 | "Stretch" | "stretch" | "2015-04-25" | "" >>> | "" | >>> | 15 | 10.0 | "Buster" | "buster" | "2018-07-01" | "" >>> | "" | >>> | 16 | NA | "Sid" | "sid" | "1993-08-16" | "" >>> | "" | >>> | 17 | NA | "Experimental" | "experimental" | "1993-08-16" | "" >>> | "" | >>> >>> >>> (It turns out that R's allowing either ' or " for enclosing strings is >>> an advantage for quoting strings within strings.) >>> >> >>
