Short comment inline
On 12/04/2016 12:45, John Kane wrote:
Thank you Rolf. fortune(350) was the link I was trying to remember.
I believe! I believe in the documentation.
It can be incredibly difficult to document something and unless one has an
editor to read and 'try' to interpret the results the original writer may not
realise just how opaque the explanation is.
I do not think anyone who has written documentation would disagree.
Would one way forward here for the OP to suggest with the benefit of all
the comments how things might be enhanced so that he would not have been
baffled?
John Kane
Kingston ON Canada
-----Original Message-----
From: r.tur...@auckland.ac.nz
Sent: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 15:34:54 +1200
To: murdoch.dun...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [R] [FORGED] Re: [FORGED] Re: identical() versus sapply()
On 12/04/16 14:45, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:18 PM, Bert Gunter wrote:
"The documentation aims to be accurate, not necessarily clear."
!!!
I hope that is not the case! Accurate documentation that is confusing
is not very useful.
I don't think it is ever intentionally confusing, but it is often
concise to the point of obscurity. Words are chosen carefully, and
explanations are not repeated. It takes an effort to read it. It will
be clear to careful readers, but not to all readers.
I was thinking of the statement quoted earlier, 'as(x, "numeric") uses
the existing as.numeric function'. That is different than saying 'as(x,
"numeric") is the same as as.numeric(x)'.
IMHO this is so *obviously* confusing and misleading --- even though it
is technically correct --- that whoever wrote it was either
intentionally trying to be confusing or is unbelievably obtuse and/or
out of touch with reality.
It is not (again IMHO) clear even to *very* careful readers.
To my mind this documentation fails even the fortune(350) test.
cheers,
Rolf
--
Technical Editor ANZJS
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
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--
Michael
http://www.dewey.myzen.co.uk/home.html
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R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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