From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Thu Nov 12 15:36:55 2009
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:36:55 +0100
Subject: [Rd] typo in docs for unlink()
In-Reply-To: <4AFBF355.5010803@stats.uwo.ca>
References: <4AFA350D.7060303@acm.org> <4AFA3AA7.8080104@acm.org>
	<4AFA93B1.6050508@stats.uwo.ca> <4AFB77A8.30802@userprimary.net>
	<19195.50598.636144.927120@lynne.math.ethz.ch>
	<4AFBF355.5010803@stats.uwo.ca>
Message-ID: <19196.7559.967761.336720@lynne.math.ethz.ch>

>>>>> Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>>>>>     on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:36:53 -0500 writes:

    > Martin Maechler wrote:
    >>>>>>> "SF" == Seth Falcon <seth at userprimary.net>
    >>>>>>> on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:49:12 -0800 writes:
    >>>>>>> 
    >> 
    SF> On 11/11/09 2:36 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
    >> >> On 10/11/2009 11:16 PM, Tony Plate wrote:
    >> >>> PS, I should have said that I'm reading the docs for unlink in
    >> >>> R-2.10.0 on a Linux system. The docs that appear in a Windows
    >> >>> installation of R are different (the Windows docs do not mention that
    >> >>> not all systems support recursive=TRUE).
    >> >>> 
    >> >>> Here's a plea for docs to be uniform across all systems! Trying to
    >> >>> write R code that works on all systems is much harder when the docs
    >> >>> are different across systems, and you might only see system specific
    >> >>> notes on a different system than the one you're working on.
    >> >> 
    >> >> That's a good point, but in favour of the current practice, it is very
    >> >> irritating when searches take you to functions that don't work on your
    >> >> system.
    >> >> 
    >> >> One thing that might be possible is to render all versions of the help
    >> >> on all systems, but with some sort of indicator (e.g. a colour change)
    >> >> to indicate things that don't apply on your system, or only apply on
    >> >> your system. I think the hardest part of doing this would be designing
    >> >> the output; actually implementing it would not be so bad.
    >> 
    SF> I would be strongly in favor of a change that provided documentation for 
    SF> all systems on all systems.
    >> 
    SF> Since platform specific behavior for R functions is the exception rather 
    SF> than the norm, I would imagine that simply displaying doc sections by 
    SF> platform would be sufficient.
    >> 
    SF> I think the benefit of being able to see what might not work on another 
    SF> platform far out weighs the inconvenience of finding doc during a search 
    SF> for something that only works on another platform -- hey, that still 
    SF> might be useful as it would tell you what platform you should use ;-)
    >> 
    >> I strongly agree.
    >> As someone said, this only applies to relatively few help pages,
    >> and I'm not sure if it's worth (at the moment) of first
    >> designing a rendering scheme to emphasize your current platform.
    >> Maybe even to the contrary, I'd want the PDF version of the
    >> help page to (almost (*)) entirely platform independent.
    >> It depends how thing *are* platform dependent.
    >> If one function argument only applies to Windows, then the
    >> corresponding paragraph could simply start,
    >> "On Windows, .....".
    >> In other situations, using something similar to what Henrik
    >> proposed, a \section{..} on platform specific parts would
    >> suffice.
    >> 

    > If that's the intention, there's nothing to stop you from editing the 
    > existing pages.  A quick grep suggests that there are about 100 pages 
    > with #ifdef in the base and recommended packages; 

Yes, I know (did not know the "statistics" here, thanks),
but I'd really like us to agree on a slightly changed course
of what is desired, rather than the current  "#ifdef OS .."
parts in the help pages. 

The changes can well happen "as time permits".
One of the first things would be to somewhat discourage from
using  "#idef OS"   sections in Rd files,
in the "Writing R Extensions" manual.

    > there are also a few dozen pages which are completely
    > platform-specific (mostly related to Windows API or GUI topics).

I could  agree to keep these in man/windows/ and hence not be
visible otherwise.
Personally, I'd still much prefer them to be part of the help
system also on non-Windows.

    > I suspect the Linux users are going to be the
    > biggest complainers if the Windows-only material starts
    > showing up on their systems.  They don't like to be told
    > they should be using Windows rather than Linux.

The help page would just say that it is Windows-only.
That may not at all imply that someone should use Windows.

Martin

    > Duncan Murdoch
    >> I also find it very important that I read on "my" (OS) help page,
    >> about less or more functionality on another platform, and I'd
    >> rather want the full details of that platform than just 
    >> a note that something is platform dependent.
    >> Of course, there's the situation of missing / extra  capabilities()
    >> but I think these are well documented where applicable, and they
    >> *do* follow the idea that you should also learn about things
    >> that are currently not available to you.
    >> 
    >> Martin
    >>



[Rd] typo in docs for unlink()
Martin Maechler