RFortunes @rfortunes@mamot.fr

Release 1.0.0
(silence)
Wow! Thank you! [...] If I am allowed to ask just one question today: How do you fit 48 hours of coding in an ordinary day? Any hints will be appreciated ... :-)
-- Detlef Steuer (on 2000-02-29)
R-help (February 2000) #Rstats

Karl Ove Hufthammer: Why not use 'predict.loess' (i.e., 'predict' on a loess object) directly?
Greg Snow: Because that would be simple, straightforward, and make sense, and not require knowledge about less obvious functions.
-- Karl Ove Hufthammer and Greg Snow
R-help (May 2010) #Rstats

No matter how much progress is made by the developers of screen readers somehow PDF remains less than accessible. It's a bit like a failed relationship in which one partner tries to win the other back with expensive gifts.
-- Paul R. Stanley (in a discussion about text-to-speech processors for the benefit of blind users of LaTeX)
texhax mailing list (March 2009) #Rstats

The only people who should use the assign function are those who fully understand why you should never use the assign function.
-- Greg Snow
R-help (July 2009) #Rstats

memory problems (not me. my pc!)
-- Sara Mouro (subject line for an R-help request)
R-help (January 2008) #Rstats

I think, therefore I R.
-- William B. King (in his R tutorials)
http://ww2.coastal.edu/kingw/statistics/R-tutorials/ (July 2010) #Rstats

Basically, you are calling .Internal from the command line. It is not designed to be called from there and only wizards know what happens if it is. (The set of wizards who might know whether it makes any sense at all does not include me!)
-- Peter Dalgaard
R-devel (May 2014) #Rstats

John Fox: I've never understood why it's legal to change the built-in global "constants" in R, including T and F. That just seems to me to set a trap for users. Why not treat these as reserved symbols, like TRUE, Inf, etc.?
Rolf Turner: I rather enjoy being able to set pi <- 3.
-- John Fox and Rolf Turner
R-help (June 2013) #Rstats

Uwe Ligges: Please stop sending unsensible bug reports! Those have to be handled manually in the bug repository!
Barry Rowlingson: Really? They seem to be being handled automatically and frighteningly well by the Uwe-bot at the moment. Congratulations, you've passed the Turing Test.
-- Uwe Ligges and Barry Rowlingson (after several nonsensical mails to R-bugs)
R-devel (July 2004) #Rstats

If you aren't sure of the relative priority of two operators, use parentheses. 1:(nr-1) would work regardless of whether : or - had higher priority. Or, in extreme cases, read the documentation.
-- Duncan Murdoch
R-help (August 2005) #Rstats

Most people pay infinitely more to Microsoft for Windows than they pay to R Core for R. I hope that's also the ratio of their complaints to Microsoft about this bug to their complaints to us about R.
-- Duncan Murdoch (after a report that the default R version associated with .R files could not be changed in the standard Windows dialogs)
R-help (May 2011) #Rstats

Seldom are prizes, credit, and gratitude given, else Brian would be drowning in them.
-- Anthony Rossini (about the merits of implementing software)
R-help (May 2004) #Rstats

It is unusual for the actual data not to be available in real problems.
-- Brian D. Ripley (in reply to a question how to fit a distribution if not the data but only their histogram is available)
R-help (June 2006) #Rstats

John Fox: I've never understood why it's legal to change the built-in global "constants" in R, including T and F. That just seems to me to set a trap for users. Why not treat these as reserved symbols, like TRUE, Inf, etc.?
Rolf Turner: I rather enjoy being able to set pi <- 3.
-- John Fox and Rolf Turner
R-help (June 2013) #Rstats

So, with the item in the original query:

if (x<-3) do_something;

if they wrote it as

if (x<(-3)) do_something;

there would be no problem (and no doubt about what went with what). Of course in complicated expressions this could induce an episode of ocular lispopia, but apart from that it's safe!
-- Ted Harding (about potential confusion between assignment and comparisons with negative numbers)
R-devel (August 2010) #Rstats

Is this English or American (you know, the language referred to in the USA as 'English')? [...] As an English English speaker, my sense and my employer's dictionary both suggest doubling here.
-- Brian D. Ripley (in a discussion whether it is 'subsetable' or 'subsettable')
R-devel (February 2004) #Rstats

John Fox: I've never understood why it's legal to change the built-in global "constants" in R, including T and F. That just seems to me to set a trap for users. Why not treat these as reserved symbols, like TRUE, Inf, etc.?
Rolf Turner: I rather enjoy being able to set pi <- 3.
-- John Fox and Rolf Turner
R-help (June 2013) #Rstats

I think that the formula language does allow expressions with '/' to represent nested factors but I can't check right now as there is a fire in the building where my office is located. I prefer to simply write nested factors as factor1 + factor1:factor2.
-- Douglas Bates
R-SIG-Mixed-Models (February 2013) #Rstats

Most people pay infinitely more to Microsoft for Windows than they pay to R Core for R. I hope that's also the ratio of their complaints to Microsoft about this bug to their complaints to us about R.
-- Duncan Murdoch (after a report that the default R version associated with .R files could not be changed in the standard Windows dialogs)
R-help (May 2011) #Rstats

You are going to need a few more sessions for this therapy to be useful, we cannot read your computer's mind, just interpret what you tell us. I don't want to jump ahead, but can you tell us the childhood of your crashes, etc.
-- Romain Francois (in a 'psychotherapy' session trying to understand the sources of a useR's problems)
R-help (November 2009) #Rstats