[6384] in s-news-athena
S and S-PLUS by Example (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sheldon L. Epstein)
Fri Feb 3 13:22:44 1995
From: k9ape@eden.eecs.nwu.edu (Sheldon L. Epstein)
To: s-news@utstat.toronto.edu (newsgroup splus)
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 11:53:15 -0600 (CST)
> 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
>
Halleluah!
One place to start would be tips on reading/scanning in data files generated
by other programs. I just spent an afternoon finding out how to scan in video
image data. Now that I have succeeded, my investigations are very promising.
I'll be back with more questions and suggetions later.
Thanks,
Shel Epstein, k9ape@eecs.nwu.edu
