From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Tue Mar  7 09:20:07 2006
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 09:20:07 +0100
Subject: [Rd] Wishlist - Give R a name that shows up in search engines...
In-Reply-To: <440CD21E.3040809@stats.uwo.ca>
References: <6.2.5.6.0.20060306134952.04a69380@dandelion.org>
	<440CD21E.3040809@stats.uwo.ca>
Message-ID: <17421.16951.246716.141836@stat.math.ethz.ch>

>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>>>>>     on Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:21:50 -0500 writes:

    Duncan> On 3/6/2006 4:09 PM, Tim Brown wrote:
    >> Hi everyone,
    >> 
    >> I know this is a long shot but I just wanted to throw it
    >> out there.  I have lately been using R a lot and have
    >> found that it is basically impossible to find any code
    >> help or answers via google searching because the name "R"
    >> is simply not explicit enough.

    Duncan> That hasn't been my experience.  Could you post some
    Duncan> examples of your searches?

    Duncan> For example, "find length of array in R" turns up
    Duncan> R-specific answers in 4th and 9th positions on the
    Duncan> first page of results.  Using "find length of array,
    Duncan> R Project" turns up 6 out of 10 hits referencing R.

in which google?  The one in the US, in Europe, in China, or ... ?

As we probably all know the censorship differs from place to
place .. and it seems one has no way to circumvent 
Big-Brother Google's decisions anymore.

Sorry, but I couldn't refrain; I had been very disappointed by these news.

Martin Maechler



    Duncan>   For
    >> every other popular program or programming language a
    >> simple search with the name of the program and your
    >> problem brings up something pretty close to the answer,
    >> its usually just a matter of phrasing it so the results
    >> you are looking come up in your search (e.g. "find length
    >> of array, Matlab").  Try a similar web search for R and
    >> you will learn nothing -- Why? because the letter "R" is
    >> on almost every web page on the planet.
    >> 
    >> I'm not just whining here, I think this is a really
    >> serious problem.  On the web, "findability" is perhaps
    >> the single most important feature of any product or
    >> program. The unique beauty of the Web anyone who solves
    >> any problem can post the answer almost anywhere want, a
    >> search engines will index it and serve it up to someone
    >> looking for a solution to that problem. Of course it
    >> doesn't quite work like that but its pretty close if you
    >> trying to find out how to program something in most
    >> languages and programs. You can't do this in R because
    >> its name is not unique enough, and that seriously hampers
    >> the ability of both new and expert users to accomplish
    >> things quickly.  I realize that there is the R-project
    >> website and so on, but the decentralized nature of the
    >> web assures that not not everyone will post their answers
    >> there and people such as me who search google first
    >> rather than going straight to a single site will have a
    >> hard time finding answers.
    >> 
    >> So seriously, has there ever been any discussion about
    >> renaming R so that people's hard work on making this
    >> kick-butt program can be shared and searched with the
    >> same facility that other programs enjoy.  It could be
    >> something as simple as "R plus" ;) just anything that
    >> makes it unique enough that R program pages aren't
    >> indexed with 100 billion pages that happen to have a
    >> single R on them for some reason.
    >> 
    >> Cheers,
    >> 
    >> Tim
    >> 
    >> ______________________________________________
    >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

    Duncan> ______________________________________________
    Duncan> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    Duncan> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel



[Rd] Wishlist - Give R a name that shows up in search engines...
Martin Maechler