[R] Ashlee Vance's article on R in the New York Times

[Patrick Connolly]

On Thu, 08-Jan-2009 at 01:26AM -0500, Robert Wilkins wrote:

[....]

|> Some R promoters point out that R has lexical scope and lots of
|> Scheme goodness. ( and what widespread programming language today
|> does not have lexical scope? ). But other R promoters point out
|> that programs in S-Plus usually work in R, and vice-versa. Well, in
|> that case, then it's the same damn programming language!

Same language, but a different 'interface'.

The effort to get them to work in the other interface relates mostly
to dealing with the the presence or absence of lexical scoping.  But
even if Splus did have lexical scoping, I'd probably have changed to R
anyway.

The main reason why I changed was because it was such a hassle getting
anything new added.  Bean-counters had to be satisfied that the admin
work was value for money before it was permissable to have an IT guy
spend time setting up a different function library.  It could take
months getting that through.

By contrast, because of no bean-counter issues, with R, I could
install everying myself and simply add packages that looked
interesting.  We're comparing seconds with months.  The crucial
difference in the interfaces is the difference between proprietary and
open.

[....]


|> One big, and crucial exception is the category of all-purpose
|> programming languages. Thousands of open source developers go to
|> bed dreaming of being the next Larry Wall. Thankfully, we have Ruby
|> and Python as a result.

So your point is that the problem with data organisation is that it is
not all-purpose enough, so we have to wait until somebody produces a
proprietary product?

Your list of Ruby and Python reminds me of the scene in 'The Life of
Brian' where the John Cleese character asks the rhetorical question:
"What have the Romans ever done for us?"  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso


-- 
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.   
   ___    Patrick Connolly   
 {~._.~}                   Great minds discuss ideas    
 _( Y )_  	         Average minds discuss events 
(:_~*~_:)                  Small minds discuss people  
 (_)-(_)  	                      ..... Eleanor Roosevelt
	  
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