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Please remove clippy

Open Chris-M-P opened this issue 4 years ago • 18 comments

Please reconsider whether clippy adds anything to this otherwise excellent package

Chris-M-P avatar Apr 02 '20 10:04 Chris-M-P

I always show it to all my colleagues that are transitioning to R and at least we have some good laughs.

But the younger generations don't really know clippy.

luciorq avatar Aug 07 '20 15:08 luciorq

While CRAN is laxing I see Github blocked Issue #12 for being "too heated", leaving it hanging. I will use a different package whenever I am unable to avoid Excel files.

drag05 avatar Sep 25 '20 15:09 drag05

Indeed the R community is full of people using MS Excel, or at least collaborating with Excel users. In several environments, it is a necessity.

writexl is a wonderful package and works reliably and efficiently.

Clippy was a creative and funny addition.

luciorq avatar Sep 25 '20 19:09 luciorq

But #27 is a real issue that could be solved!

luciorq avatar Sep 25 '20 20:09 luciorq

@luciorq

Thank you for reply! Although I fail to see its necessity, I think that maybe Clippy should come with options.

drag05 avatar Sep 25 '20 22:09 drag05

In this regard, I think it would be good to have an option string that could disable it.

luciorq avatar Sep 25 '20 22:09 luciorq

@drag05 @luciorq,

Curious and interested to know why it matters?

If it's that big of a deal, you could just fork the repo and remove it?

KyleHaynes avatar Sep 26 '20 05:09 KyleHaynes

@KyleHaynes, @luciorq

An option to disable would do just fine, I am not looking to spoil anyone's fun; I usually look for fun elsewhere.

drag05 avatar Sep 26 '20 15:09 drag05

@drag05, I was more interested to know why it matters for you though. This isn't meant to sound bad, I'm curious is all (I don't mind if it exists or if it doesn't).

KyleHaynes avatar Sep 27 '20 05:09 KyleHaynes

@KyleHaynes

The first question mark made the phrase confusing. In my opinion it should not have been there. To answer your question, I think that features with low contribution to code effectiveness should come with options. Thank you!

drag05 avatar Sep 27 '20 15:09 drag05

Hi Kyle. You asked above why it matters. I think it matters for two reasons. First, it can cover useful information, and it follows the cursor in an odd way. This is mostly just a bit of an inconvenience. But the reason is because it is such an odd occurrence that, like others have expressed, I thought there was a bug of sorts - I thought something was wrong with my MS install or my OS. I spent well over half an hour looking for MS and OS threads about recent problems with Clippy appearing. I eventually gave up searching. But the next two times I got help on writexl I spent almost as much time - frustrated that someone hadn't fixed the MS or OS bug yet, or thinking that maybe I just needed to update some part of my MS software or my OS. It is so non-standard that it causes this kind of confusion. Now that I know it is intentional, I will just ignore it and move on. But I care about all the people who haven't found this out and spend their time thinking there is a bug somewhere, trying to figure out how to update their system. It is a bit humorous, but it is also causing a lot of people to spend time trying to figure out what the problem is on their system. Thanks for reading

datatoolbox avatar Jan 14 '21 04:01 datatoolbox

@datatoolbox - thanks for your comments, they're both good points.

I'm obviously not the author of the package so can't remove, I've only asked the question as I've been genuinely interested (and this topic has caused some heated debate in the past).

Cheers, Kyle

KyleHaynes avatar Jan 14 '21 05:01 KyleHaynes

I am not trying to sound ominous but wonder what else the inserted "clippy" code may do while following the cursor. Perhaps CRAN should give a public reason for allowing it. No longer buying the "funny" bit.

drag05 avatar Jan 14 '21 21:01 drag05

I like Clippy! Keep it!

arencambre avatar Jan 21 '21 15:01 arencambre

@arencambre Looks like a well-documented reason

drag05 avatar Jan 21 '21 17:01 drag05

Resolved! Now where's the issue close button? 🤣

arencambre avatar Jan 21 '21 19:01 arencambre

Clippy should be removed. I thought it was MS-Word going haywire or something was seriously wrong with my PC. This sort of thing is just unprofessional.

conorotompkins avatar Jan 29 '21 16:01 conorotompkins

I think it should be removed, unfortunately I am too young to know what this was looking at it and thought I had some kind of malware issue. Its a fun idea but not everyone is going to find this funny or helpful.

hollie-rawlings avatar Nov 03 '21 10:11 hollie-rawlings