On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Monica Pisica <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > I am doing a very informal presentation for my office about R capabilities to > deal with and analyze spatial data, display data and maps, and connections > with GIS. I've used in my presentation info from the CRAN, the spatial Task > view, and the more striking graphics examples from > http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/thumbs.php and NCEAS > http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/scicomp/GISSeminar/UseCases/MapProdWithRGraphics/OneMapProdWithRGraphics.html > together with examples of my own work. > > I am finishing with pros and cons about R and I am wondering if you can come > up with other examples, or comments. Here they are: > > Pros: > > - R is a programming environment well suited for statistical analysis. > - R is open source and cross platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux). > - Fortran, C (C++), and Python wrappers are in place. > - Deals well with spatial data, has a robust graphical interface and has an > active user group list / forum. > - External packages for R are almost daily increasing, most of them based on > published up-to-date books and peer-reviewed articles. > - R related books – quite a few …. > > Cons: > > - R has a very steep learning curve. > - There is no perfect "beginner" book.
I don't think that there can be the perfect book since different people have different backgrounds and different interests and that implies a different book for different people; however, there are many books and there is a large amount of material available: http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html http://www.r-project.org/doc/bib/R-publications.html http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html and vignettes in individual packages. > - Experience with other programming languages is a plus / minus. > - You can save scripts, but not *.exe. > - It is updated several times a year (good) but there are no up-grades. What's the difference bewteen an update and an up-grade? If you mean addon packages there are 1500+ in CRAN and BioC. > - It seems that it is hard to install correctly under Linux. > - Everything you want to do is a command line, minimal GUI. There do exist GUI front ends although the full power of R requires the command line: http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/ Also its possible to write your own GUI front ends to your own programs. > - Memory management problems (depends on your OS), especially when displaying > big images at high resolution or working with huge matrices (hundreds of Mb). > > Also i am wondering if R works under 64 bit computers and if it takes > advantage of it. > > Thanks, > > Monica > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > Refresh_family_safety_052008 > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
