[Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R

[Ramon Diaz-Uriarte]

Dear Mark,

On Friday 19 January 2007 09:55, Kimpel, Mark William wrote:
> I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a
> better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute
> packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel
> Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for
> several reasons:
>
> To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can
> begin to use S4 methods in R.
>

I do not think C++ is the best idea if you are learning it to understand the 
OOP of R. The OOP of R is probably closer to that of CLOS (the common lisp 
object system) than C++ and Java.

It might be better to directly go ahead and look for documentation specificaly 
about R's OOP.

> To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R
>
> To be able to contribute a package someday.
>
>
>
> I have been doing some reading and from what I can tell R is more
> compatible with C, but C++ has much greater capabilities for OO
> programming.
>
>
>
> I have just started reading The C++ Programming Language: Special
> Edition by Bjarne Stroustrup
> <http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Bjarne+Stro
> ustrup&z=y> , he recommends first learning C++ and then then C if
> necessary, but as a developer of C++, he is probably biased.
>
>
>
> I would greatly appreciate the advice of the R developers and package
> contributors on this subject. "C" or "C++"?
>
>

I'd recommend C instead of C++: C++ is a huge language and it is somewhat 
easier to interface C than C++ from R. (In "non-R" stuff I prefer to use C++ 
better than C, even if just as in "C++as a better C", but this probably is 
not a reasonable reason to learn C++).  

HTH,

R.



>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> Mark W. Kimpel MD
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Ramón Díaz-Uriarte
Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO)
(Spanish National Cancer Center)
Melchor Fernández Almagro, 3
28029 Madrid (Spain)
Fax: +-34-91-224-6972
Phone: +-34-91-224-6900

http://ligarto.org/rdiaz
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