animation: Demos and Examples (cont'd)

examples are fast guides to usage

  library(animation)
  ?animation
  ## this gives you an overview of the package

• images are supported in documentation in R 2.14 (use \figure{})
• should be possible to create figures dynamically with Sweave in future
• honestly, I do not like the old style of R documentation at all

animation: Interfaces

• why ani.start() and ani.stop() became saveHTML()
• use modern CSS elements (round corners and shadow, etc) rather than the old clunky styles
• make it appealing enough that the user cannot wait clicking the button!

animation: Automatic Configurations (cont'd)

• saveGIF() uses ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick to convert images to GIF animations; need to know where they are installed
• automatically search for ImageMagick in Windows Registry Hive using readRegistry() (very likely to succeed)
• instead of teaching what is the environmental variable PATH (very frustrating thanks to “the system that is just this tall”)

animation: What Do I Regret Today?

• function names: now I'm more in favor of foo_bar than foo.bar (why? S3 generic functions) or fooBar (why? _ is a clearer separator than capital letters)
• built a Wiki site too early and it is too big to maintain (http://animation.yihui.org); I should have used tools like Sweave to build it dynamically (my new package knitr was partly motivated from here)

formatR: Computing on the Code

• R can compute on its own code: parse() and deparse()
• the formatR package uses the side effect of them to reformat R code
• you give me 1+1 and I return you 1 + 1 (what the heck is the difference?)

well, compare

for(k in 1:10){j=cos(sin(k)*k^2)+3;print(j-5)}

to

for (k in 1:10) {
    j = cos(sin(k) * k^2) + 3
    print(j - 5)
} 

formatR: Motivation

• it is not the fault of people to create “long chunks of ill-formatted R code piled beside the Snedecor-Grad-Copier printer”
• why cannot a workman blame his tools?
• Stat579 students motivated the tidy.eval() function

I frown on this in homeworks (score: 99.5):

> 1+1
[1] 2

tidy.eval() does this (score: 100):

1 + 1
## [1] 2

Rd2roxygen: How I Regained Enthusiasm from roxygen

• I was once extremely frustrated at maintaining the animation package due to documentation
• idea of roxygen: source code and documentation are in the same file

##' This is title
##' @param a documentation for argument a
##' @param b documentation for argument b
f = function(a, b) {
    ...
}

• no longer needs to switch back and forth between R/f.R and man/f.Rd
• documentation is generated dynamically

Rd2roxygen: How to Escape the Inferno

• roxygen translates comments to Rd
• Rd2roxygen translates Rd back to roxygen comments, e.g.

from

\arguments{
  \item{a}{documentation for argument a}
}

to

##' @param a documentation for argument a

• you maintain a single source from now on

Why Version Control?

• keep track of what you have been doing (accumulatively)
• a proof of hard work to your advisor
• save tears when your system crashes
• much much easier collaboration with others
• ...
• why GitHub? community, easy collaboration, ... (compare to R-Forge)

Why do I use = instead of <-?

• it is simpler to type (although Emacs/ESS binds <- to _)
• almost all other languages use =
• it does not confuse me at all (main reason why some people are against recommend =)

Names: Important!

• can you remember the name CvM2SL2Test or HumMeth27QCReport
• if people cannot even remember your name, how are you supposed to be famous/popular?
• Hadley's principle: Google-able
• an unbeatable name: lubridate

Have Fun

• the fun package: games and fun
• animation: started from fun
• cranvas: interactive graphics is fun
• knitr (an alternative to Sweave): dynamic report is fun
• ...