This week I’ve been feeling tired of excessive fanaticism (or zealotry) of open source software (OSS) and R in general. I do use a fair amount of OSS and pushed for the adoption of R in our courses; in fact, I do think OSS is a Good ThingTM. I do not like, however, constant yabbering on why using exclusively OSS in science is a good idea and the reduction of science to repeatability‡ and computability (both of which I covered in my previous post). I also dislike the snobbery of ‘you shall use R and not Excel at all, because the latter is evil’ (going back ages).
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Category: meta (Page 4 of 7)
Every so often I get bored writing about statistical analyses, software and torturing data and spend time in alternative creative endeavors: taking and processing pictures, writing short stories or exploring new research topics. The former is, mostly, covered in 500px, I keep the stories private and I’m just starting to play with bioacoustics.
The Google Reader debacle came while I was away from this blog; Google announced that Reader will be canned mid-year, probably because they want to move everyone towards Google+. Let’s be straightforward, it is not the end of the world but a (relatively) minor annoyance. The main consequence is that this decision led me to reevaluate my relationship with Google services and the result is that I’m replacing most services, particularly those where what I consider private information is stored. Continue reading
An R wish list for 2013
First go and read An R wish list for 2012. None of the wishes came through in 2012. Fix the R website? No, it is the same this year. In fact, it is the same as in 2005. Easy to find help? Sorry, next year. Consistency and sane defaults? Coming soon to a theater near you (one day). Thus my wish list for 2012 is, very handy, still the wish list for 2013.
End-of-year posts are corny but, what the heck, I think I can let myself delve in to corniness once a year. The following code gives a snapshot of what and how was R for me in 2012.
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A post on high-dimensional arrays by @isomorphisms reminded me of APL and, more generally, of matrix languages, which took me back to inquisitive computing: computing not in the sense of software engineering, or databases, or formats, but of learning by poking problems through a computer.
I like languages not because I can get a job by using one, but because I can think thoughts and express ideas through them. The way we think about a problem is somehow molded by the tools we use, and if we have loops, loops we use or if we have a terse matrix notation (see my previous post on Matrix Algebra Useful for Statistics), we may use that.
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