[R/S-PLUS] [EXTERNAL] Re: [External] anonymous functions

f <- function(x, xlab=deparse1(substitute(x))) paste(sep="", xlab, ": ",

2^(1:4)  |> f()

2^(1:4)  %>% f()

dput(quote(2^(1:4)  |> f()))

Luke,
   Mostly an aside.  I think that pipes are a good addition, and it is
clear that you and
other R-core thought through many of the details.   Congratulations on
what appears to be
solid work. I've used Unix since '79, so it is almost guarranteed that I
like the basic
idiom, and I expect to make use of it.  Users who think that pipes -- or
any other code --
is so clear that comments are superfluous is no reflection on R core, and
also a bit of a
hobby horse for me.

I am a bit bemused by the flood of change suggestions, before people have
had a chance to
fully exercise the new code.   I'd suggest waiting several months, or a
year, before major
updates, straight up bugs excepted.   The same advice holds when moving
into a new house.
One  experience with the survival package has been that most new ideas
have been
implemented locally, and we run with them for half a year before
submission to CRAN.  I've
had a few "really great" modifications that, thankfully, were never
inflicted on the rest
of the R community.

Terry T.

On 12/7/20 11:26 AM, luke-tierney at uiowa.edu wrote:

I don't disagree in principle, but the reality is users want shortcuts
and as a result various packages, in particular tidyverse, have been
providing them. Mostly based on formulas, mostly with significant
issues since formulas weren't designed for this, and mostly
incompatible (tidyverse ones are compatible within tidyverse but not
with others). And of course none work in sapply or lapply. Providing a
shorthand in base may help to improve this. You don't have to use it
if you don't want to, and you can establish coding standards that
disallow it if you like.

Best,

luke

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020, Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D. via R-devel wrote:

?The shorthand form \(x) x + 1 is parsed as function(x) x + 1. It may

be helpful in

making code containing simple function expressions more readable.?

Color me unimpressed.
Over the decades I've seen several "who can write the shortest code"

threads: in

Fortran, in C, in Splus, ...   The same old idea that "short" is a

synonym for either

elegant, readable, or efficient is now being recylced in the

tidyverse.   The truth is

that "short" is actually an antonym for all of these things, at least

for anyone else

reading the code; or for the original coder 30-60 minutes after the

"clever" lines were

written. Minimal use of the spacebar and/or the return key isn't

usually held up as a

goal, but creeps into many practiioner's code as well.

People are excited by replacing "function(" with "\("? Really?   Are

people typing code

with their thumbs?
I am ambivalent about pipes: I think it is a great concept, but too

many of my

colleagues think that using pipes = no need for any comments.

As time goes on, I find my goal is to make my code less compact and

more readable.

Every bug fix or new feature in the survival package now adds more

lines of comments or

other documentation than lines of code.  If I have to puzzle out what a

line does, what

about the poor sod who inherits the maintainance?

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