[Rd] Plans for tighter integration of reference classes in R.

[Vitalie S.]

John Chambers <jmc at r-project.org> writes:
>>
>> Not internals of the  evaluator, the .environment class.
>> Something like:
>>    - move the .self into a  super-class of envRefClass (in this case .environment),
>>    - make the method for `@` for .environment, such that any update of the
>>    slots of the object will update the .self, making it virtually a mirror of the
>>    object.
>>    - make functions like parent.env and environment recognize the .self and
>>    return it instead of the internal environment object (writing methods would be probably
>>    quite an overhead).
>
> I'm sorry, this is not likely to happen soon, if you expect the core developers to do it for you.  If you want to
> implement something like you suggest via methods for your classes and find it works well, we can consider
> implementing related code for the core .environment class.
>
> Whether you think the overhead of _writing_ the methods is large or not, the way such development in R works best
> is that those interested in new features implement them; particularly useful or attractive features may be absorbed
> into the core later if that makes sense.
>
> Meanwhile, the overhead of _using_ methods for these functions (i.e., the need to dispatch methods for the newly
> generic functions) will not be passed on to other applications that subclass environment.
>
 :))
 I was so enthusiastic about the idea that  _using_ and  _writing_ had the
 same meaning for me. Of course I meant _using_ there. Writing should be easy.

 Thanks,
 Vitalie.