open or closed system?

[rpruim]

I've gone at least quickly through all the issues now. It seems like you are trying to create a very closed system -- users will only be able to conduct hypothesis tests that you have imagined in advance they will want to do to and for which they know the magic character strings that name the test. This is only marginally different from having a separate function for each test.

A true grammar of hypothesis testing would be a more open system where a new hypothesis test could be conducted without needing to add to the package.

For starters, in calculate(), why isn't stat a function (or a string that names a function). That would allow users to use any test statistic by providing a function of the proper arity for the data. It would also allow users to directly apply the stat function to the data set in question to get the observed value of the test statistic.

Here are some test cases for your "grammar":

• how do I test that two medians are the same using the difference in medians as a test statistic?
• ditto for other quantiles
• how do I test that 2 groups have the same variance using the difference in standard deviations as a test statistic?
• how do I test that 3 groups have the same variance using the variance of the variances as a test statistic?

[andrewpbray]

We're planning to do exactly as you suggest - allow stat to be a function and more generally, to make this as open a system as possible. Reading the GitHub issues might be a bit misleading - we also chat once a week, but those conversations often don't make their way to GitHub. The package is also in the early stages of development, so we're starting with the most common use-cases to feel out the flow of the syntax before generalizing.

[nicholasjhorton]

I'm glad to hear how this project is shaping up: I'm very interested in ways to round off some of the rough edges in R that can allow students and instructors at places like Reed as well as those in less well-resourced environments to incorporate R early and often. I'm particularly keen to hear about places where existing tidyverse approaches aren't intuitive or where instructors run into trouble.

If it would make sense to open up one of your meetings to a larger group to talk about these issues I'd welcome the chance to participate.

[rpruim]

I'm glad to know that you are after an open system -- although I find statements in the issues that seem to contradict that point of view and suggest that the focus is on traditional intro stats topics, which would interest me far less.

As for being misled by the issues -- it's where you tell people to look:

To participate in the discussion surrounding the development of this package, please see the issues.

Reading the GitHub issues might be a bit misleading.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked. If you believe you have found a related problem, please file a new issue (with a reprex: https://reprex.tidyverse.org) and link to this issue.