Chris Barker 415-852-3152 <CHRIS.BARKER@roche.com> wrote:
> The main drawback to SPLUS has been the fact that the programming language, in
> some respects, is arcane and its hard or impossible to locate programmers with
> expertise or willingness to learn S-PLUS.
A few points (related to a few pet peeves):
1) Arcane is only bad if the oddities are gratuitous. What
makes S arcane is what makes it powerful.
2) I generally don't look for programmers willing to learn S.
I look for researchers willing to program. And I don't
accept the usual "but not everyone wants/needs/is able to
program." I have never met a spreadsheet user who didn't
eventually end up writing a macro. Lured by the seductive
easiness of the GUI interface, they eventually are trapped
into programming anyway, using the horrid kludges that
pass as macro "languages." Learning and programming S is
much, MUCH easier.
What scares me about the rapid development of Splus is that it
is so focused on GUI bells and whistles that new users are
encouraged to remain ignorant of its real potential. The latest
"standard" Splus hides the S language altogether. :-(
--Todd
--
Z. Todd Taylor
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Todd.Taylor@pnl.gov
Why is it *on* a certain date but *at* a certain time?
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