The visualization guru, Edward Tufte, known for all things visualization, tweeted that #rstats alone is not good enough for phublication quality graphics. He claimed
“Publication-quality work requires: R + Adobe Illustrator + reasoning about words on graphics + respect for audience/readers/viewers “.
#Rstats coders and users just can’t do words on graphics and typography. Proof: 40 years of clunky, even recent Stanford Statistics textbooks. Publication-quality work requires: R + Adobe Illustrator + reasoning about words on graphics + respect for audience/readers/viewers https://t.co/tqFYoZAH5v
— Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) June 26, 2018
Later on he amended a bit that “Adobe Illustrator can be replaced by LaTex !”
Adobe Illustrator can be replaced by LaTex ! https://t.co/r3Svy0Leh1
— Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) June 26, 2018
It might the case with #rstats 10 years ago. Now, this is totally not true. It is kind of sad to see such comments that are very far from the truth/reality from such an icon. There are number of counter examples to this. A few of wonderful examples include
- Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Clause Wilke
- Data Visualization: A practical introduction by Kieran Healy
And even the real publication giants like BBC and FT uses R for dataViz.
With a great sense of humor Claus Wilke announced that he is abandoning his book
Sad to announce I’ll have to abandon my project of writing a book on #dataviz entirely in #rstats, with all figures programmatically generated. I just learned it is not possible. Ignore the 21 chapters already online. They are a mirage. https://t.co/dXjW8kaAs6 https://t.co/lNZncfpY30
— Claus Wilke (@ClausWilke) June 26, 2018
Wait, does this mean because I’m writing a book in #rstats I’m not a real scientist? My tenure committee won’t be happy about that. Fortunately they disbanded seven years ago. https://t.co/DwGCuCFN1X
— Claus Wilke (@ClausWilke) June 27, 2018
Nihilist Data Scientist had a sober tweet,
Most #DataScience folks eventually learn that while we all aspire to create #dataviz that meets Tufte’s approval, we are all doomed to fall short under his watchful gaze.
So as with all other things in life it’s healthier to give up. Embrace your failure, for it is inevitable.
— Nihilist Data Scientist (@nihilist_ds) June 26, 2018
The greatest of Tuftes contributions to data visualisation in recent years are his obnoxious tweets prompting a flurry of replies with great resources proving him wrong, thus helping the spread of said ressources
— Thomas Lin Pedersen (@thomasp85) June 26, 2018
