On 25/09/2008, at 12:42 AM, Martin Maechler wrote:
<snip>
[And, yes, if you think further and are wondering:
If we'd design things from scratch, we would only have S4
classes and "double" would be a proper class and
"numeric" would be the class union of {"integer", "double"}
]
<snip>
Well thank God you didn't design things from scratch,
otherwise we'd all be constrained to use the abomination
of S4 classes which make programming effectively impossible
unless you are a genius of the order of John Chambers or
Doug Bates or Martin Maechler.
Most of us are not such geniuses and are equipped only with
ordinary human minds to which S4 classes and methods are
incomprehensible. Even geniuses have trouble with them.
A mate of mine, whom I consider to be one of the smartest guys
in whole *universe* says he can't understand the damned things
either. And that's saying something.
If we were forced to use S4 classes and methods, I don't think
I'd be an R user. At least I wouldn't --- couldn't --- program
in R and would therefore be restricted to using only the facilities
that come out of the box. Which kind of defeats the purpose of R.
cheers,
Rolf
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