> -----Original Message-----
> From: Monder, Harvey [mailto:Harvey.Monder@pharma.com]
>
> The attachment of my response to Sicco Schets e-mail may have been
> misleading. But it occurred during a particularly
> frustrating time in using
> Splus. I am an experienced programmer and applications
> developer. I have
> worked in other languages. I like S and its related languages in part
> because I have experience using APL, an older language upon
> which S seems to
> be based and which I always considered one of the most
> powerful languages.
I do not believe S is based on APL in any sense, but I could be wrong...
> Let me give you an example of the documentation; I am writing an
> application on the Windows platform in which I am using the
> GUI commands.
> In order to add a title to a graph page I use
> GuiCreate("MainTitle",...).
> In checking the documentation in the Help file included with
> 2000, I find no
> indication as to which parameter to use to enter the text of
> the title. I
> eventually solved the problem, but the solution was not
> intuitive. My time
> is expensive, I can't spend it searching for such basic information.
My guess is that you are using Splus functions written for the Splus GUI.
If I'm not mistaken, these functions were intended to be called/used only
through the Splus GUI, not from command line or scripts. In so, you're
hacking the system beyond its intended use, and I don't think Insightful can
be blamed for not documenting those, as they may not be considered part of
the API. (One may argue that these functions *should* be part of the API
and therefore documented, but that's up to Insightful.)
> As far as the problem that was presented in the original
> e-mail, I expect
> that statements such as If/Else to be basic to a programming language.
> Those statements should not change whether you go backward or
> forward in
> version, or across platforms.
Dave Smith's reply address these issues very well.
> I get the feeling that Insightful is trying to sell its product as a
> development language. If this is so they must accept the
> responsibility of
> addressing compatibility and documentation issues. In fact the
> compatibility issues can often be resolved via proper
> documentation. If
> these are not addressed then the software will probably remain a niche
> product. This would be a shame as I agree that the potential for the
> language is almost limitless.
>
> Harvey
One more word about cross-platform and version compatibilities. My own
(limited) experience is that the backward compatibility (even
cross-platform) of Splus 6 is very good, and I haven't even need to use the
migration wizard yet. (I was moving things between Splus 2000 and Splus 6
on Linux). As Dave pointed out, forward compatibility is perhaps only for
those blessed with such gifts. Try loading a .xls file created in Excel
2000 into Excel 4.0!
Andy
Andy I. Liaw, PhD
Biometrics Research Phone: (732) 594-0820
Merck & Co., Inc. Fax: (732) 594-1565
mailto:andy_liaw@merck.com
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