You might be interested in the BiocGenerics package from Bioconductor. It
defines a bunch of "base" generics, as well as some that are specific to
Bioc needs. Being Bioc-oriented, it's not really meant to be a base4, but
it comes reasonably close, and it could serve as a jumping off point for a
base4, an expanded stats4, or whatever.

Michael


On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 3:23 AM, Sven E. Templer <sven.templer@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear developers,
>
> the implementation of S4 generics for existing S3 ones in the base
> package is concerned to be a threat to quick startup times [1]. But
> since S4 is promoted, and S3/S4 interoperability a pain when package
> developing [2], are there efforts to improve the situation? E.g. an S3
> free system, etc.
>
> A good thing [2] is the package 'stats4', including some setGeneric
> calls (e.g. for summary, plot, ...) which I can 'importFrom' to a
> NAMESPACE. Nevertheless, functions as as.matrix, as. dist, merge,
> duplicated, and for sure some others, are not available as S4
> generics.
> So my question is: will the base/graphics/... S3 generic definitions
> for S4 methods be completely implemented in a future R release?
> (E.g. in base4/stats4,/graphics4/... (by heritage [3]) or combined by
> a single package such as genericS4)
>
> Sorry I couldn't get more information from the devel archive (or find
> a solution/answer) since the same idea already has been mentioned in
> 2007 [4]. Thank you for clarifying in advance.
>
> Sincerely,
> Sven
>
> [1]
> http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/An-update-method-for-lists-td912749.html#a912756
> [2] my opinion
> [3]
> http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/improved-error-message-when-existing-implicit-S4-generic-is-not-imported-td4421688.html#a4436278
> [4] http://developer.r-project.org/BDR_S4issues.txt
>
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>

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