Even using the VBA back of Excel to create interfaces with R would make a lot of sense. Suppose I could have access to VBA macros that import and export data into R , it would be great.
The R GUI series like Rattle come even closer to Excel...so a VBA _R_ExCel package might be useful to ordinary folks . Besides Excel costs money, so adding R functions to Open Office would help both of them ( if not attempted already) Regards, Ajay www.decisionstats.com On 1/8/09, Stavros Macrakis <macra...@alum.mit.edu> wrote: >> >> "Some people familiar with R describe it as a supercharged version of >> Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet software..." >> > > It is easy to ridicule this line from the NYT article. But this is not only > a very sensible comment by a smart reporter, but also one that is good for > R: > > It is good for R because it explains the new (R) in terms of the familiar > (Excel). Of course R can do far more than Excel ever could, but most > readers will not be familiar with boxplots, let alone studentized bootstrap > confidence intervals, yet R is useful even for elementary analyses. > > It is good for R because it will bring us new users. I have often looked > over the shoulders of Excel users struggling to do analyses or construct > graphics that are just slightly beyond what Excel makes easy. Perhaps the > dataset is too large, or the analysis doesn't fit into the spreadsheet > model, or the analysis isn't built-in (and so requires either many manual > steps, or Visual Basic programming, or an expensive add-on package), or it > requires data sources that Excel doesn't handle well, or it has gotten so > complicated that it is unmaintainable in spreadsheet form. R scales better > in every way: in size of problem, in complexity of analysis, in data > sources. > > It is good for R because it makes it sound unthreatening and easy, both for > the person who might consider using R rather than Excel, and for his/her > management. Of course, R is not trivial to learn, but you don't have to > master everything about it to get useful results (just like Excel, I might > add). > > It is good for R because it reminds us that there are other useful computing > paradigms that we can learn from. The spreadsheet model, including instant > update, is compelling for a wide range of problems. I have not used any of > the R/Excel interface packages, but presumably they combine the advantages > of the approaches. Perhaps there is room for not just integrating R with > Excel, but for incorporating the core ideas of Excel into R in some > intelligent way. > > It is good for R because it shows areas where R can be improved. Excel > makes it very easy to present tabular data and format it. It makes it very > easy to work with summary/contingency tables (pivot tables) interactively > and only a little more difficult to do drill-down. In all cases, its > functionality is limited, but what it can do, it does well. > > It is good for R because it reminds us that there are many people using > other tools who could benefit from outreach from the R community, both > through tools (smoother interoperability) and through education. > > All in all, characterizing R as a supercharged version of Excel makes a lot > of sense. > > -s > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > 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. > -- Regards, Ajay Ohri http://tinyurl.com/liajayohri ______________________________________________ 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.
