[Rd] is R syntax closed?

[Ben Bolker]

Mark van der Loo <mark.vanderloo <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> > comment, some marker for 'command doesn't end at this line' etc.
> 
> That is not necessary since R supports multi-line commands
>  without the need
> for marking continuation.
> 
> > R syntax done and any extensions are forbidden?
> 
> R is maintained and extended by the R code team[1] who decide 
> on the GNU R
> project. Suggestions (or sometimes patches) are posted on this
>  list and may
> or may not be implemented (but please check that your suggestion/question
> is indeed new by searching the list archive). R is maintained on an svn
> repository and doesn't support pull requests in the same way git does.
> Since R is free in the GNU sense you can always define your own local
> version, see e.g. [2].
> 
> > i'm new to R
> 
> welcome, and have fun!
> 
> best,
> Mark
> 
> [1] https://www.r-project.org/contributors.html
> [2] https://github.com/radfordneal/pqR
> 

   You might find the discussion at http://bit.ly/1ip1S2G
(StackOverflow "proposing feature requests to the r core team")
useful.  For practical purposes, I would say R syntax *is* closed, 
because any changes to the syntax would have to (1) be implementable
without unreasonable effort by the R Core members (ideally by extremely
high-quality contributed code) (2) not break backward compatibility
in any way, including the 7000ish packages currently on CRAN and
2000+ packages on BioConductor, which represent the tip of the
iceberg of deployed R code ...

  As you say, multi-line comments and multi-line commands have
been discussed many times, but most existing R users have already
gotten used to the existing workarounds (e.g. using smart editors
or an if (FALSE) {   ...  })

see also

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1231195/multiline-comment-workarounds

  Ben Bolker

  Ben Bolker