[6363] in s-news-athena
S and S-PLUS by Example
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Treder)
Thu Feb 2 13:47:24 1995
From: bob@statsci.com (Robert Treder)
To: S-news@stat.wisc.edu (S-news)
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 09:56:37 -0800 (PST)
Cc: bob@statsci.com (Robert Treder)
I have had in mind for some time writting a book titled something like
"S and S-PLUS by Example" and have recently started writting it. I have
been teaching S-PLUS courses and interacting with S-PLUS users (many of
them beginners) for several years so I have a repertoire of examples and
experiences to draw from. However, given all the discussion over the past
couple of weeks on documentation, ease of use, and the need for more examples,
I would like to request from those of you who feel you would benefit from
such a book, a list of the most important topics you would like covered.
Even a few extremely important topics with a little detail on what you
would like to do would be very helpful. I would especially like comment
from those new users who have had trouble getting started. From more
experienced users and teachers of S or S-PLUS courses or stat courses
using S or S-PLUS I'ld also appreciate any comments you feel might improve
subject matter or presentation.
Also, how you would like to see it presented. My current approach is to
organize the book by tasks and for each task (e.g. reading in a table of
data, fitting and displaying models by groups, overlaying plots, generating
output for reports) present the TASK, Examples, Explanation, and See Also.
The explanation for many examples will come at two depths, a beginner
just-give-me-what-I-need-to-know-to-make-it-work level, and a more
advanced description of the S/S-PLUS technical details of why/how the
example works. This is similar to what Knuth does in his TeXbook with
dangerous bends and double dangerous bends.
Since I am early in the writting process I can still consider suggestions
on formating, indexing and so on.
Thanks in advance for all comments and suggestions.
Bob Treder
bob@statsci.com
