[R] On Reproducible Code

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 11:50 AM, David L Carlson <dcarlson at tamu.edu> wrote:
> We often refer requesters to the Posting Guide and chide them for not
> reading it. Recently I had occasion to re-read the Posting Guide which is
> for all R lists not just R-help. The word "reproducible" does not appear
> anywhere in the guide. The closest it comes is the following suggestion:
>
> "Sometimes it helps to provide a small example that someone can actually
> run."
>
> Recommendations to use the function dput() to provide sample data do not
> appear in the guide.
>
> The bottom of messages to R-help does contain the statement you've all seen,
> but I had assumed it summarized advice found elsewhere since first time
> posters may not see the message until after they have posted.
>
> "PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal,
> self-contained, reproducible code."
>
> The Mailing Lists page describes R-help but refers only to the posting guide
> http://www.r-project.org/mail.html and does not include this advisory
> statement.
>
> The R-help Info Page also refers only to the posting guide
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help and does not include this
> advisory statement.
>
> I hesitate to sound too optimistic, but there might be some advantage in
> making the statement more prominent and adding a reproducible example using
> dput().
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> David L Carlson
> Associate Professor of Anthropology
> Texas A&M University
> College Station, TX 77843-4352
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at 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.

I agree that the posting guide is not ideal.  On the other hand, the
last line of every message to r-help does concisely list what is
required.

-- 
Statistics & Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com