Facets of R

Authors

John M. Chambers, Stanford University

Date of this Version

6-2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

The R Journal (June 2009) 1(1)

Comments

Copyright 2009, The R Foundation. Open access material. License: CC BY 3.0 Unported

Abstract

We are seeing today a widespread, and welcome, tendency for non-computer-specialists among statisticians and others to write collections of R functions that organize and communicate their work. Along with the flood of software sometimes comes an attitude that one need-only-learn, or teach, a sort of basic how-to-write-the-function level of R programming, beyond which most of the detail is unimportant or can be absorbed without much discussion. As delusions go, this one is not very objectionable if it encourages participation. Nevertheless, a delusion it is. In fact, functions are only one of a variety of important facets that R has acquired by intent or circumstance during the three-plus decades of the history of the software and of its predecessor S. To create valuable and trustworthy software using R often requires an understanding of some of these facets and their interrelations. This paper identifies six facets, dis cussing where they came from, how they support or conflict with each other, and what implications they have for the future of programming with R.