Little useless-useful R functions – Useless Pyramid of R needs

What motivates human behaviour can be captured in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (source: Wiki). Maslow and psychologists have articulated these needs in a form of a Pyramid, and ever since the concept had been widely adopted (also criticised), and yet, another adaptation is the Pyramid of R needs

Yes, R needs What does it take to create and write an useless-useful R function. Well, let’s dive into this reluctant nonsense, with a weary potential.

The function is pure ggplot based depiction of pyramid. First version is stacked blocks and the second version is polygon in shape of triangle (resembling the pyramid).

useless_needs_pyramid <- function(    levels  = c("L1","L2","L3","L4","L5"),    palette = c("#8e24aa","#3f51b5","#2196f3","#4caf50","#fbc02d")) {  tiers <- 5  H  <- tiers * 1.0     BW <- 3.4              w_at <- function(y) (BW/2) * (1 - y / H)  y_breaks <- seq(0, H, length.out = tiers + 1)  poly_list <- lapply(seq_len(tiers), function(i) {    ymin <- y_breaks[i]    ymax <- y_breaks[i + 1]    wt   <- w_at(ymax)    wb   <- w_at(ymin)    data.frame(      tier = i,      x = c(-wt, wt, wb, -wb),      y = c(ymax, ymax, ymin, ymin)    )  })  poly_df <- do.call(rbind, poly_list)  # ToDO: Add delimiters for text!  lab_df <- data.frame(    tier  = seq_len(tiers),    ymin  = y_breaks[-(tiers + 1)],    ymax  = y_breaks[-1]  )    lab_df$y_mid <- (lab_df$ymin + lab_df$ymax) / 2  lab_df$w_mid <- w_at(lab_df$y_mid)  lab_df$label <- rev(levels)                  lab_df$fill  <- palette  lab_df$label_x <- -lab_df$w_mid + 0.2    # wrap long labels  wrap_width = 25  wrap_fun <- function(s, w) paste(strwrap(s, width = w), collapse = "\n")  lab_df$label_wrapped <- vapply(lab_df$label, wrap_fun, character(1), w = wrap_width)    add_alpha <- function(col, alpha) {    rgb <- grDevices::col2rgb(col, TRUE)/255    grDevices::rgb(rgb[1], rgb[2], rgb[3], alpha = alpha)  }    poly_df <- merge(poly_df, transform(lab_df, tier = tier, fill = fill), by = "tier", sort = FALSE)    p <- ggplot() +    geom_polygon(      data = poly_df,      aes(x = x, y = y, group = tier, fill = I(fill)),      color = "white", linewidth = 1    ) +    geom_label(      data = lab_df,      aes(x = label_x, y = y_mid, label = label_wrapped),      hjust = 0, vjust = 0.5,      label.size = 0,      fill = add_alpha("white", 0.22),      label.padding = unit(6, "pt"),      size = 5,      lineheight = 1.05,      color = "black"    ) +    coord_equal(      xlim = c(-BW/2 - 0.2, BW/2 + 0.5), ylim = c(0, H),      expand = FALSE    ) +    labs( title    = "Useless Pyramid of R Needs",          subtitle = "From useless to useful R functions",      x = NULL, y = NULL) +    theme_void(base_size = 13) +    theme(      plot.title    = element_text(face = "bold", size = 18, hjust = 0.5),      plot.subtitle = element_text(margin = margin(t = 4, b = 10), hjust = 0.5),      panel.background = element_rect(fill = "#0f0f12", color = NA),      plot.background  = element_rect(colour = "gray", fill = NA),      plot.margin = margin(20, 20, 20, 20)    )    print(p)}

Or if you would like it more smoothed, linear (or continuous) and pyramid-kind-a-look this is similar.

To run the function (in both cases), add colours and the captions for the pyramid:

useeless_needs_pyramid(  levels = c(    "Gathering ideas for writing useless-useful R functions",    "Applying interesting math problems",    "Writing quarky and niffty R code",    "Getting new knowledge",    "Engaging community"  ),  palette = c("mediumpurple","yellowgreen","yellow","gold","red"))

As always, the complete code is available on GitHub in  Useless_R_function repository. The first version is here (filename: Maslow_needs.R) and the second is here (filename: Maslow_needs_2.R)

Check the repository for future updates!

Stay healthy and happy R-coding!