Re: Status?

Dear Frederic, Bill, and Lisp-stat list members,

I've spoken over the past couple of months to several individuals who, like 
myself, have more or less left Lisp-stat for R. There are several obvious 
reasons for doing so: Lisp-stat seems moribund, while R is alive and well; 
there is a very wide and growing range of statistical applications 
available for R; R has standards for data sets, models, documentation, 
etc.; and (perhaps more controversially) the S programming language is 
easier to use than Lisp.

Nevertheless, everyone to whom I've talked regrets losing some of the 
functionality of Lisp-stat, including the ability to draw dynamic, linked 
graphs, and the built-in facilities for constructing graphical interfaces.

Although I don't have the technical expertise either to answer the 
following question or, certainly, to implement a solution, I wonder whether 
it would be possible to incorporate the Lisp-stat graphics and GUI-building 
capabilities into R, ideally in the form of an add-on package that would 
work in all three supported environments -- Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix. I 
know that there would be some obstacles -- and probably the components from 
Lisp-stat would have to run as a separate process -- but don't know whether 
these obstacles can be overcome.

If anyone has any ideas along these lines, I'd be interested in hearing 
them, and possibly in helping to organize a project to implement them.

Regards,
  John

At 12:44 AM 8/6/2002 +0200, Frederic Udina wrote:

>Bill,
>
>(just to be sure that somebody answers your question)
>
>Xlisp-stat, still being the only choice for some statistical applications,
>is not as active as it was some time ago.
>
>Some of the gurus have moved to R, some other are quite inactive. Some of
>us are still working with it but we obviously miss some lifting on the
>software... But apparently the efforts to undertake it have not been
>succesful.
>
>I have not looked to the official site for a while, it would be good to
>have it at least pointing to the existing resources.
>
>Somebody singin'  "We shall overcome..." out there?
>
>
>
>On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Bill Harris wrote:
>
>~~~I just used XLISP-STAT again today after a bit of an absence, and I
>~~~thought I'd check to see what was new on the Web.  While I don't need to
>~~~see ongoing developments to find a tool useful, I was curious in that
>~~~http://www.xlispstat.org/ and the UCLA site that Google returned both
>~~~seemed offline.  What is up with XLISP-STAT these days?
>~~~
>~~~Bill
>~~~--
>~~~Bill Harris                                  3217 102nd Place SE
>~~~Facilitated Systems                          Everett, WA 98208 USA
>~~~http://facilitatedsystems.com/               phone: +1 425 337-5541
>~~~
>
>
>  Frederic Udina
>   ____________________________________________________________________
>   <[email protected]> Dept. D'Economia i Empresa   Universitat Pompeu Fabra
>                   Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27      08005 Barcelona SPAIN
>   tel. 34- 935421756/1763 fax: 34- 935421746     http://libiya.upf.es/
>   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>   There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke  B.Dy.

-----------------------------------------------------
John Fox
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4
email: [email protected]
phone: 905-525-9140x23604
web: www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox
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