From spencer.graves at prodsyse.com  Thu May  7 23:42:27 2009
From: spencer.graves at prodsyse.com (spencerg)
Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 14:42:27 -0700
Subject: [Rd] proposed changes to RSiteSearch
In-Reply-To: <971536df0905071408q481806ben4737b6f1d314d6c2@mail.gmail.com>
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	<20090507141812.GB25422@psych.upenn.edu>	<4A031A22.7080702@stats.uwo.ca>
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	<20090507180930.GA1619@psych.upenn.edu>	<39B6DDB9048D0F4DAD42CB26AAFF0AFA073C4758@usctmx1106.merck.com>	<4A032E6F.8010001@dbmail.com>
	<20090507192632.GA4723@psych.upenn.edu>
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	<971536df0905071408q481806ben4737b6f1d314d6c2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4A0355C3.9070006@prodsyse.com>

      1.  Whatever we do with the "RSiteSearch" function, it should 
still be available every time R starts.  If we put it in its own 
package, it should still be autoloaded with "base", "utils", "stats", etc. 


      2.  Sundar indicated to me that, "if Jonathan would like to remove 
the search capability, it would be rather simple to move RSiteSearch to 
nabble" for the listserve archives.  The "RSiteSearch" function could be 
modified to combine that with a separate search of only the help pages 
on Jonathan's server. 


      3.  However, I can't volunteer to do much more on this at least 
until late June and probably not before late August.  If you wanted to 
move the "RSiteSearch" function to the "RSiteSearch" package on R-Forge, 
Romain, Sundar and I would be happy to have other developers and let 
them implement the group consensus. 


      Best Wishes,
      Spencer

Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> But help really needs to be delivered with R, not an addon.
> It should not be necessary to know how to install packages
> just to get this level of help. I think it needs to be where it
> is now.
>
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Liaw, Andy <andy_liaw at merck.com> wrote:
>   
>>  I agree!  Recall, though, I had added the RSiteSearch() functionality
>> to the Rgui under Windows (Help / search.r-project.org...), so if
>> RSiteSearch() is taken out, this need to go, too.
>>
>> Best,
>> Andy
>>
>> From: Jonathan Baron
>>     
>>> There is something to be said for taking all of these functions,
>>> including the original RSiteSearch, out of utils and putting them in
>>> the new RSiteSearch package.  These are the sorts of things that will
>>> get revised frequently, and this way (I think) we won't have to bother
>>> whoever takes care of utils, which is part of the regular R
>>> distribution.
>>>
>>> I'm adding Spencer Graves to the cc list.  Maybe he is interested in
>>> doing this.
>>>
>>> Jon
>>>
>>> On 05/07/09 20:54, Romain Francois wrote:
>>>       
>>>> We could have a few functions similar to RSiteSearch or
>>>>         
>>> gmaneSearch I
>>>       
>>>> just posted and then cook a summary html page with R ...
>>>>
>>>> Here is a function that grabs relevant groups from gmane:
>>>>
>>>> gmaneGroups <- function( prefix = "gmane.comp.lang.r." ){
>>>>     url <- URLencode( sprintf(
>>>> "http://dir.gmane.org/index.php?prefix=%s", prefix) )
>>>>     txt <- grep( '^<tr.*<td align=right.*<a', readLines(
>>>>         
>>> url ), value =
>>>       
>>>> TRUE )
>>>>
>>>>     rx <- '^.*?<a href="(.*?)">(.*?)</a>.*<td>(.*?)</td>.*$'
>>>>     out <- data.frame(
>>>>         url = gsub( rx, "\\1", txt ),
>>>>         group = gsub( rx, "\\2", txt ),
>>>>         description = gsub( rx, "\\3", txt ),
>>>>         stringsAsFactors = FALSE
>>>>         )
>>>>     out$group <- sub( "...", ".*", out$group, fixed = TRUE )
>>>>     out
>>>> }
>>>>
>>>> I'll clean this up and write a man page if there is
>>>>         
>>> interest in adding
>>>       
>>>> this to R, but this might be more appropriate in a package,
>>>>         
>>> for example:
>>>       
>>>> http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/rsitesearch/
>>>>
>>>> Romain
>>>>
>>>> Liaw, Andy wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> From: Jonathan Baron
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> On 05/07/09 13:48, Liaw, Andy wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> From: Duncan Murdoch
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>>>> I'll incorporate the changes if you like
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>                 
>>>>>> Yes.  Please do.  I understand that it won't take effect
>>>>>>             
>>> for a while.
>>>       
>>>>>> When it does, I'll change my site.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   What do you think
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>>> of the idea
>>>>>>>> of adding a gmane (or other archive) search to your results
>>>>>>>> page?  Then
>>>>>>>> if someone doesn't like what the man pages show, you can
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>                 
>>>>>> send them
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>>> somewhere else, rather than leaving them to find out the
>>>>>>>> other resources
>>>>>>>> themselves.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> gmane has sample code for this on their search page
>>>>>>>> search.gmane.org, so
>>>>>>>> it looks reasonably easy.  I'd suggest following their
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>                 
>>>>>> last example,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>>> with a drop-down box to select mailing lists, with
>>>>>>>> comp.lang.r.* as an
>>>>>>>> option for "all lists".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>                 
>>>>>> Good idea.  I will do this.  But there are also two
>>>>>>             
>>> other good search
>>>       
>>>>>> engines.  Maybe I'll add all three search alternatives.
>>>>>>             
>>> But then,
>>>       
>>>>>> according to Sheena Iyengar, people won't choose any!  Hmm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> Actually, I was thinking about a possible RHelpSearch() in
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> addition, if
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> Jon is no longer going to include the R-help archive in the
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> search.  I
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> used the current RSiteSearch() a lot more for searching
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> R-help archive
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> than functions in packages.  Ideas?  comments?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> This is OK with me, but I don't want to do it.  I guess it would
>>>>>> search gmane.  MarkMail is also pretty good, as is
>>>>>> http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/ All these are much better than
>>>>>> Namazu for searching the R-help list.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>> Sorry I didn't make it clear:  I meant something like the
>>>>>           
>>> gmaneSearcg()
>>>       
>>>>> that Romain posted, not hitting your site.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Andy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Jon
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>> --
>>>> Romain Francois
>>>> Independent R Consultant
>>>> +33(0) 6 28 91 30 30
>>>> http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> --
>>> Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
>>> Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
>>> Editor: Judgment and Decision Making (http://journal.sjdm.org)
>>>
>>>       
>> Notice:  This e-mail message, together with any attachme...{{dropped:12}}
>>
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>>
>>     
>
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>



[Rd] proposed changes to RSiteSearch
spencerg