[Rd] Stability and reliability of R (comment on Re: as.vector() broken on a matrix or array of type "list")

[MacQueen, Don]

With regard to Martin's  comment about the strength of (base) R:

I have R code I wrote 15+ years ago that has been used regularly ever since with only a few minor changes needed due to changes in R. Within that code, I find particularly impressive for its stability a simple custom GUI that uses the tcltk package that has needed no updates whatsoever in all that time.

Such stability and reliability have been extremely valuable to me.

-Don

--
Don MacQueen
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
7000 East Ave., L-627
Livermore, CA 94550
925-423-1062
Lab cell 925-724-7509
 
 

On 9/26/18, 12:41 AM, "R-devel on behalf of Martin Maechler" <r-devel-bounces using r-project.org on behalf of maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:

[-- most of original message omitted, so as to comment on the following --]
    
    -----
    *) {Possibly such an R we would create today would be much closer to
        julia, where every function is generic / a multi-dispach method
        "a la S4" .... and still be blazingly fast, thanks to JIT
        compilation, method caching and more smart things.}
    But as you know one of the strength of (base) R is its stability
    and reliability.  You can only use something as a "the language
    of applied statistics and data science" and rely that published
    code still works 10 years later if the language is not
    changed/redesigned from scratch every few years ((as some ... are)).
    
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