Quoting Thomas L Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I am trying to do what is perhaps the most basic procedure which can be done > with the R software. > > Under Windows XP Home Edition, I want to get a copy of the function "gam," > then put it in and use it. I intentionaly use informal terms, rather than > technical terms whose exact meaning I might or might not know. > > I am finding this extremely frustrating. Every time I try to do anything, > all I get is error messages. Hey, this isn't rocket science; there are only > three or four or five steps involved. Well, what are they? There is all this > opaque terminology. There are libraries, and packages, and one downloads > them, loads them, and installs them, but just what all this means is > unclear. > > One example among many: I tell it > > library (gam) all I get is an error message. > > Error in library (gam) : there is no package called 'gam' > > Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something different? For > example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not yet been > downloaded? > > I did download and install the 2.4.1 flavor (version?) of the gui. I infer, > reading between the lines a bit, that there may be a sort of standard > procedure for setting things up, perhaps downloading and installing the > utils package, or something. > > The R software has much gold in it, but, as far as learnability/usability is > concerned, I give it poor marks. > > Tom Jones > DrJones at alum.MIT.edu
Poor marks? It's not the most user-friendly tool to use, as it requires a little bit of learning[*]... but I find that there's a lot of very useful information if you care to look for it and read it. What you can't do is just type stuff at random and be annoyed that R doesn't understand what you mean. [*] don't you have to learn how to use _any_ tool, anyway? The "Introduction to R" included by default as a pdf with the RGui installation (and accessible via its Help menu) is a very useful introduction to R (surprise!). I'd recommend starting with that, before despairing. There are tons of useful R documentation all over... Jose -- Dr. Jose I. de las Heras Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology Phone: +44 (0)131 6513374 Institute for Cell & Molecular Biology Fax: +44 (0)131 6507360 Swann Building, Mayfield Road University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH9 3JR UK ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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.
