Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
On 13/07/10 19:16, Erik Iverson wrote:
Raubertas, Richard wrote:
I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only secondarily
because it is a data type. The primary problem is that it is so generic
as to be almost totally uninformative about what the package does.
For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally
uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of
recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH',
'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along
the lines of
'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and
'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively?
I'm sure it's part tradition...
ls
cat
rm
cp
mv
su
No need to leave R, which has some 9 one-letter symbols, 35 two-letter
symbols, and 121 three letter symbols in the base and core packages. It
is just unreal. (The equivalent numbers from my Linux system are 3, 56,
and 148, and one of those one-letter commands is R!!)
Quiz yourself on these:
c C D F I q s t T
ar as bs by cm de df dt el gc gl if Im is
lh lm ls lu ns pf pi pt qf qq qr qt Re rf
rm rt sd te ts VA vi
abs acf ACF AIC all aml any aov Arg ave bam bcv
bdf BIC bmp BOD box bxp cat cav ccf cch cd4 cgd
co2 CO2 col cor cos cov cut DDT det
dim Dim dir end exp fft fgl fir fix for gam get
glm gls Gun hat hcl hsv IGF IQR Kfn knn lag lcm
lda lme log lqs mad Map max mca min mle Mod new
nlm nls npk nsl OME one Ops pam par pbc PBG pdf
pie png ppr qda raw rep rev rfs rgb rig rle rlm
row rug seq sin SOM SSD SSI stl str sub sum svd
svg tan tar tau tcl tmd try tsp two ucv unz url
var x11 X11 xor
Generated from R --vanilla with:
for (p in c(base, boot, class, cluster, codetools, datasets,
foreign, graphics, grDevices, grid, KernSmooth, lattice,
MASS, Matrix, methods, mgcv, nlme, nnet, rpart, spatial,
splines, stats, stats4, survival, tcltk, tools, utils))
library(p, character.only=TRUE)
rm(p)
one - unique(grep(^[[:alnum:]]+$, apropos(^.$), value=TRUE))
two - unique(grep(^[[:alnum:]]+$, apropos(^..$), value=TRUE))
three - unique(grep(^[[:alnum:]]+$, apropos(^...$), value=TRUE))
and from the bash shell with
ls -1 {/usr,}/bin/? 2/dev/null
ls -1 {/usr,}/bin/?? | perl -ne 'print substr $_,-3' | sort -u | wc -l
ls -1 {/usr,}/bin/??? | perl -ne 'print substr $_,-4' | sort -u | wc -l
Allan
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Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? As an author of a package with a maximally uninformative name (lavaan), I like to believe that strange names can have strange attractions. After all, you did notice the package, didn't you? Plus you can google it! Hadley -- Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair Department of Statistics / Rice University http://had.co.nz/ __ 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.
Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
Let me quote the authority on naming convention: What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Best, Ravi. Ravi Varadhan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology School of Medicine Johns Hopkins University Ph. (410) 502-2619 email: rvarad...@jhmi.edu - Original Message - From: Hadley Wickham had...@rice.edu Date: Thursday, July 15, 2010 3:17 am Subject: Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments To: Yves Rosseel yves.ross...@ugent.be Cc: r-help@r-project.org, richard_rauber...@merck.com For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? As an author of a package with a maximally uninformative name (lavaan), I like to believe that strange names can have strange attractions. After all, you did notice the package, didn't you? Plus you can google it! Hadley -- Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair Department of Statistics / Rice University __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list PLEASE do read the posting guide and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ 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.
Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
Yes, but the choice of a name can substantively affect the marketing success of a new product. The current sos package started as the RSiteSearch package. I asked people for comments about the name. The consensus was that RSiteSearch was not a good name for that, and the universal distress signal sos would be better. Spencer On 7/15/2010 6:04 AM, Ravi Varadhan wrote: Let me quote the authority on naming convention: What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Best, Ravi. Ravi Varadhan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology School of Medicine Johns Hopkins University Ph. (410) 502-2619 email: rvarad...@jhmi.edu - Original Message - From: Hadley Wickhamhad...@rice.edu Date: Thursday, July 15, 2010 3:17 am Subject: Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments To: Yves Rosseelyves.ross...@ugent.be Cc: r-help@r-project.org, richard_rauber...@merck.com For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? As an author of a package with a maximally uninformative name (lavaan), I like to believe that strange names can have strange attractions. After all, you did notice the package, didn't you? Plus you can google it! Hadley -- Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair Department of Statistics / Rice University __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list PLEASE do read the posting guide and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ 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. -- Spencer Graves, PE, PhD President and Chief Operating Officer Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc. 751 Emerson Ct. San José, CA 95126 ph: 408-655-4567 __ 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.
Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
RR == Raubertas, Richard richard_rauber...@merck.com
on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:46:41 -0400 writes:
RR I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only
RR secondarily because it is a data type. The primary
RR problem is that it is so generic
RR as to be almost totally uninformative about what the
RR package does.
RR For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally
RR uninformative names for their packages. To take some
RR examples of recently announced packages, can anyone
RR guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why
RR the aversion to informative names along the lines of
RR 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and
RR 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively?
Hmm, apart from the other answers (cutesiness, tradition,
keyboard) about which I agree to some extent, there's the
related question of what package names are / should be allowed.
Interestingly, I haven't found this information as quickly as I
expected {first looking at help(package.skeleton) as that
could be the way to create your very first package},
I've quickly switched to the Writing R Extensions manual,
and there, in Chapter Creating R Packages,
you have to search forward to
1.1.1 The `DESCRIPTION' file
The `DESCRIPTION' file contains basic information about the package in
the following format:
Package: pkgname
Version: 0.5-1
Date: 2004-01-01
Title: My First Collection of Functions
[]
The `DESCRIPTION' file should be written entirely in ASCII for
maximal portability.
The `Package' and `Version' fields give the name and the version of
the package, respectively. The name should consist of letters,
numbers, and the dot character and start with a letter.
The version is a sequence of at least
So, the package name is currently limited to the regular expression
[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9.]+
{assuming that A-Za-z really gives R's c(LETTERS, letters),
which is not true in quite a few locales}
and in particular _ are not allowed.
If you are really interested in more, you should start
discussing the matter on R-devel (rather than R-help).
Note that the _ is currently used as separator between package
name and package version in some contexts, and allowing _ be
part of the package name itself may need more changes in the R
project infrastructure (including package repositories and their
tools !!) than we (R Core) would want to
undertake (*and* maintain (!)),
but as I say, R-devel is the place to propose and discuss
changes to R.
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich
RR R.Raubertas
-Original Message- From:
r-help-boun...@r-project.org
[mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of
Jeffrey J. Hallman Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 10:09 AM
To: r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] [R-pkgs]
New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
I know nothing about your package, but list is a
terrible name for it, as list is also the name of a
data type in R.
--
Jeff
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Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
Well, as the author of two CRAN packages with short names (tis and fame), I maintain that short names can be fairly informative. The fame package is an interface to FAME time series databases, and the tis package implements the tis (TimeIndexedSeries) class and support classes that it needs. When writing a package, you sometimes have to make reference to its name. For example, in .C() calls I use the 'package = pkgname' argument pretty often. And it's nice to have the output from calling search() look nice. Jeff Raubertas, Richard richard_rauber...@merck.com writes: I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only secondarily because it is a data type. The primary problem is that it is so generic as to be almost totally uninformative about what the package does. For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? -- Jeff __ 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.
Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
On 07/13/2010 07:46 PM, Raubertas, Richard wrote: I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only secondarily because it is a data type. The primary problem is that it is so generic as to be almost totally uninformative about what the package does. For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? As an author of a package with a maximally uninformative name (lavaan), I like to believe that strange names can have strange attractions. After all, you did notice the package, didn't you? Yves Rosseel, UGent. __ 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.
Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only secondarily
because it is a data type. The primary problem is that it is so generic
as to be almost totally uninformative about what the package does.
For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative
names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced
packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan'
do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of
'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and
'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively?
R.Raubertas
-Original Message-
From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org
[mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey J. Hallman
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 10:09 AM
To: r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing
list surveyexperiments
I know nothing about your package, but list is a terrible
name for it,
as list is also the name of a data type in R.
--
Jeff
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Re: [R] [R-pkgs] New package list for analyzing list surveyexperiments
Raubertas, Richard wrote: I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only secondarily because it is a data type. The primary problem is that it is so generic as to be almost totally uninformative about what the package does. For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally uninformative names for their packages. To take some examples of recently announced packages, can anyone guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why the aversion to informative names along the lines of 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? I'm sure it's part tradition... ls cat rm cp mv su __ 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.
