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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