[Rd] I've written a big review of R. Can I get some feedback?

[J C Nash]

Any large community-based project is going to be driven by the willing volunteers. Duncan Murdoch
has pointed this out a long time ago for R. Those who do are those who define what is done.

That said, I've felt for quite a long time that the multiplicity of ways in which R can do the same
tasks lead to confusion and errors. Arguably, a much stricter language definition that could execute
95% of the existing user R scripts and programs would be welcome and provide a tool that is easier
to maintain and, with a great deal of luck, lead to better maintainability of user codes.

And, as others have pointed out, backward compatibility is a millstone.

Whether anything will happen depends on who steps up to participate in R.

In the meantime, I believe it is important for all R users to report and try to fix those things
that are egregious faults, and documentation fixes are a very good starting point.

John Nash


On 2022-04-09 15:52, Reece Goding wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> For a while, I've been working on writing a very big review of R. I've finally finished my final proofread of it. Can I get some feedback? This seems the most appropriate place to ask. It's linked below.
> 
> https://github.com/ReeceGoding/Frustration-One-Year-With-R
> 
> If you think you've seen it before, that will be because it found some popularity on Hacker News before I was done proofreading it. The reception seems largely positive so far.
> 
> Thanks,
> Reece Goding
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