From Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>  Thu Aug 16 08:27:29 2001
From: Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch> (Martin Maechler)
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:27:29 +0200
Subject: [Rd] scale() generic {was "documented but missing..."}
In-Reply-To: <3B7ADEE3.146C63F9@bank-banque-canada.ca>
References: <200108151730.TAA10351@pubhealth.ku.dk>
 <3B7ADEE3.146C63F9@bank-banque-canada.ca>
Message-ID: <15227.30177.440433.558758@gargle.gargle.HOWL>

>>>>> "PaulG" == Paul Gilbert <pgilbert@bank-banque-canada.ca> writes:


    BDR> BTW, is it you who is responsible for the scale generic in R?  dse
    BDR> has scale <- function(x, ..., scale = TRUE) UseMethod("scale")
    BDR> as R did,

    PaulG> As R still does I believe.

yes, 1.3.0 does

    PaulG> I don't recall being responsible for
    PaulG> this, but I vaguely recall being involved in a discussion and I
    PaulG> believe I changed my generic to match R's. My original scale
    PaulG> generic pre-dates Splus 3.4 and scale was not generic in Splus
    PaulG> 3.3 (nor in R in the previous millennium).

I was somehow involved in this discussion, maybe impementation as well.
It started with someone asking for scale() to become generic,
because he wanted to write methods for it and because the S-plus coders
had made it generic.
Very vaguely I also remember that the request was also to allow other
arguments than those of scale.default() which *does* make sense, just think
of specialized matrix classes, etc.
Unfortunately, `scale' is not a good word to grep for in the mailing list
archives...

Martin
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[Rd] scale() generic {was "documented but missing..."}
Martin Maechler