[R] An "R is slow"-article

[Tom Backer Johnsen]

Gustaf Rydevik wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Reading the wikipedia page on R, I stumbled across the following:
> http://fluff.info/blog/arch/00000172.htm
> 
> It does seem interesting that the C execution is that much slower from
> R than from a native C program. Could any of the more technically
> knowledgeable people explain why this is so?
> 
> The author also have some thought-provoking opinions on R being
> no-good and that you should write everything in C instead (mainly
> because R is slow and too good at graphics, encouraging data
> snooping). See  http://fluff.info/blog/arch/00000041.htm
>  While I don't agree (granted, I can't really write C), it was
> interesting to read something from a very different perspective than
> I'm used to.

The important aspect of R is not that it is less fast for a particular
kind of operation than a dedicated  program written in a compiled
language like C, Pascal, or Fortran for a particular kind of analysis.
  That is not really surprising, and not relevant for anything but the
most extreme situations given the speed (and low price) of modern
computers.

What is really relevant is (a) the context of any operation, R is a
well documented language where a very large number number of
operations may be combined in an extremely large number of ways where
the probability of errors is very low, and (b) all aspects of the
language is peer reviewed.

Both points are extremely important in any research context, where
everything, including the software used in computations, should be
possible to document.  These qualities are difficult to achieve in
homebrewed programs.  Therefore one should not resort to programming
anything on your own unless the operations you need are definitely not
present in the language you are using.  Apart from that, you have to
think about cost in respect to the time and resources used to develop
your own substitutes for something that already exists.

He also says that R encourages "fishing trips" in the data.  Well,
that may be somewhat true for R as well as any of the major
statistical packages.  But that is a problem that really is in a
different domain, one of attitudes on how to do research in the first
place.

Tom
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Gustaf
> 
> _____
> Department of Epidemiology,
> Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control
> work email: gustaf.rydevik at smi dot ki dot se
> skype:gustaf_rydevik
> 
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| Tom Backer Johnsen, Psychometrics Unit,  Faculty of Psychology |
| University of Bergen, Christies gt. 12, N-5015 Bergen,  NORWAY |
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| Email : backer at psych.uib.no    URL : http://www.galton.uib.no/ |
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