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Satish

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Mar 5, 2009, 5:12:59 PM3/5/09
to ggplot2
Hi:
Once one starts getting used to the "grammar" and how to use ggplot2,
would excel graphing not be the choice anymore (because of the
flexibility and power offered by this module)? Today I had to draw
some graphs and I imported from R analysis and then did my graphs in
Excel. I am hoping that after getting used to ggplot2, the same
graphing will be easier and better from within R. Would that be a fair
statement? Thanks.
Satish

hadley wickham

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Mar 5, 2009, 5:15:55 PM3/5/09
to Satish, ggplot2

Yes. After you have used ggplot2 for a little bit, you will find
excel graphics tremendously constraining.

Hadley

--
http://had.co.nz/

Dianne Cook

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Mar 5, 2009, 6:50:56 PM3/5/09
to hadley wickham, Satish, ggplot2
Satish,

I have to second Hadley's comment, enthusiastically. I expect that you
would find very quickly that excel is just too, too limited!

cheers,
Di
---------------------------
Dianne Cook
dic...@iastate.edu



Peter Flom

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Mar 5, 2009, 6:54:36 PM3/5/09
to ggplot2group
Hadley wrote

>> Yes. After you have used ggplot2 for a little bit, you will find
>> excel graphics tremendously constraining.
>


I found Excel graphics very constraining long before I found ggplot2. Not only are they constraining, they are stupid constraints.

I am just starting with ggplot2, but R base graphics blow Excel out of the water, as does lattice.

ggplot2 may be even better....

Peter


Peter L. Flom, PhD
Statistical Consultant
www DOT peterflomconsulting DOT com

mattm...@gmail.com

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Mar 5, 2009, 7:04:54 PM3/5/09
to ggplot2
Thirded. I have been using ggplot2 for all of about four hours, and I
just plotted 131 histograms to pdf in under five minutes (not counting
the time it took me to figure out the "print" bit...), and they all
look great. It does take a bit of getting used to, even if you're
familiar with R's standard graphics, but try that in Excel.

It is, frankly, madness that I took 4 classes of graduate-level stats
at ISU without finding out about this package. Thanks, Dr. Wickham.


Matt Parker
Academic Assessment Analyst
University of Denver





On Mar 5, 4:50 pm, Dianne Cook <dic...@iastate.edu> wrote:
> Satish,
>
> I have to second Hadley's comment, enthusiastically. I expect that you  
> would find very quickly that excel is just too, too limited!
>
> cheers,
> Di
>
> On Mar 5, 2009, at 4:15 PM, hadley wickham wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Satish <satish.vadlam...@gmail.com>  

Wayne Folta

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Mar 5, 2009, 8:03:55 PM3/5/09
to Satish, ggplot2
Actually, you have three learning curves:

1. How to manage data in R, probably beyond what you have to do in
order to run your analysis.

2. How to plot in a non-interactive environment.

3. How to use ggplot2 (or whatever graphing package you use).

In Excel, you probably already know #1, you don't have to deal with
#2, and your options in Excel are limited so you may well not run into
issue #3 either.

Graphing in ggplot2 involves learning new ways of thinking in all
three of these areas, so it's no surprise that it's easier to fall
back on Excel, especially if you're doing graphs that you've always
done and have come to be satisfied with what Excel allows (restricts)
you to do.

Wayne

D Kelly O'Day

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Mar 5, 2009, 9:22:26 PM3/5/09
to Satish, ggplot2
Satish

After spending a great deal of time developing Excel - VBA based charts, I've made/ am making the shift from Excel to R for my advanced charting. I've been documenting my learning curve progress at link1.

You can see my Excel advanced chart gallery at this link 2.

I've made a video to help Excel users get familiar with R, you can view it link3

Kelly O'Day


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Hi:
Once one starts getting used to the "grammar" and how to use ggplot2,
would excel graphing not be the choice anymore (because of the
flexibility and power offered by this module)? Today I had to draw
some graphs and I imported from R analysis and then did my graphs in
Excel. I am hoping that after getting used to ggplot2, the same
graphing will be easier and better from within R. Would that be a fair
statement? Thanks.

Satish

Vitalie S.

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Mar 6, 2009, 9:02:27 AM3/6/09
to ggplot2
Hi,

Excel is surely below comparison. How about data visualization in other statistical packages (SPSS chart builder, SAS editors - have nether tried myself)?
Is GG implemented anywhere else except R?

Best,
Vitalie.


Satish

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Mar 6, 2009, 9:26:36 AM3/6/09
to ggplot2
Hi Kelly:
Thanks for the response and sharing the information (and to the
encouragement of all the other folks who responded). I could not find
the links that you talked about in your e-mail (probably because you
use lotus notes and created a hotspot). Could you please send the
links again? You could also send them to Satish.V...@fritolay.com
and I will send you some chips some time :).
Satish


On Mar 5, 8:22 pm, "D Kelly O'Day" <ko...@processtrends.com> wrote:
> Satish
>
> After spending a great deal of time developing Excel - VBA based charts,
> I've made/ am making the shift from Excel to R for my advanced charting.
> I've been documenting my learning curve progress at  link1.
>
> You can see my Excel advanced chart gallery at this  link 2.
>
> I've made a video to help Excel users get familiar with R, you can view it  
> link3
>
> Kelly O'Day
>
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Peter Flom

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Mar 6, 2009, 10:46:32 AM3/6/09
to Vitalie S., ggplot2
SAS has gotten a lot better with version 9.2, but is still below R, in my experience.

Experts on SAS graph can produce anything .... Experts on R base graphics, likewise. But I think R defaults to nicer things, and it is definitely easier to modify graphs.

But SAS' new ODS graphics produces some really excellent default graphs from statistical procedures.

Peter

D Kelly O'Day

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Mar 6, 2009, 11:13:13 AM3/6/09
to Satish, ggplot2
Satish:

I misformated the links in my previous reply to Satish.

Here are the correct links:

Link 1: my running documentation of my Excel to R learning curve

                   http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com

Link 2: my advanced Excel charts

                 http://processtrends.com/TOC_chart_gallery.htm

Link 3: my video on

               http://processtrends.com/R_Videos/Familiar_wmv_final.wmv

Hope that these help. The journey to R is well worth the effort.

Kelly O'Day

http:/processtrends.com
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com



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Satish

After spending a great deal of time developing Excel - VBA based charts, I've made/ am making the shift from Excel to R for my advanced charting. I've been documenting my learning curve progress at link1.

You can see my Excel advanced chart gallery at this link 2.

I've made a video to help Excel users get familiar with R, you can view it link3

Kelly O'Day


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Subject: newbie question
From: Satish <satish.v...@gmail.com>


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hadley wickham

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Mar 6, 2009, 2:24:49 PM3/6/09
to Peter Flom, Vitalie S., ggplot2
> SAS has gotten  a lot better with version 9.2, but is still below R, in my experience.
>
> Experts on SAS graph can produce anything .... Experts on R base graphics, likewise.  But I think R defaults to nicer things, and it is definitely easier to modify graphs.

And generally, I think you can produce the graphics you want in far
far far fewer lines of code.

> But SAS' new ODS graphics produces some really excellent default graphs from statistical procedures.

They are nice, but not easy to customise.

Hadley

--
http://had.co.nz/

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