I agree with those who would like to see the R-Project's site redone. If/when it is redone, I think there should be more emphasis on providing links / access to useful materials for new users. I find it interesting that this discussion has been very focused on the technologies that should be used, rather than on the content should be provided. Although I think it is important to assess the relevant technologies that exist and choose a framework that will work well with R, I think there should also be some thought / discussion on the layout and content of any new site.
In that spirit, I would like to make a suggestion / request. Currently, the website has a page dedicated to manuals: http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html This is a good page and the manuals are very very helpful. However, there are a lot of good resources that are not (to the best of my knowledge) listed on the r-project's site. A few examples would include: * Quick-R - http://www.statmethods.net/ * The R Inferno - www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/R_inferno.pdf * Rseek.org There are others, but these are the three that I have found to be _most_ useful to me as a relatively new R user. I believe any redesigned site should really try to present more resources to new R users. Before I learned about Rseek (on this list), I wasted epic amounts of time trying to Google for R related information. Although it is possible to use Google to answer R related questions, it's not as easy as search for how to do something in perl or python. I think a new r-project site should include a page / wiki focused on informing new users about the myriad or resources that exist. This certainly won't eliminate all of the repetitive questions on the list, but I think it could help. I suggest a wiki format, because an open wiki would enable the R community to update the information and provide links to new resources as the become available and let the web-team focus on improving and maintaining the site. Others may disagree with me regarding an open wiki, but I want to keep my comment focused on the idea of helping new users find useful material, and not get side tracked in a discussion about wikis or other technologies. There are others here far more knowledgeable about web-design than I am, I just know that there could be more done to present information to new users. That's my 10 cents. -- This is the price and the promise of citizenship. -- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.