Objects in R
On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 01:01:54PM -0400, Roger D. Peng wrote:
One important thing to remember, which I think some more experienced programmers may forget, is that R is two things---a programming language and an *interactive* system for statistics and graphics. Maintaining the "interactive-ableness" of R may have imposed certain design choices. I personally think the current S4 system of generics/methods is quite suitable for both the "programming" and "interactive" sides of R.
That's certainly a valid point. A more "standard" kind of object orientation does not necessarily impair interactive use, however. Python is no less usable interactively than R, for example. Best regards, Jan
Just $0.02. -roger Nathan Whitehouse wrote:
Hi, A few comments from a fairly experienced R user who worked for several years on a R-based bioinformatics analysis framework. I don't want to misrepresent anyone's views, but... There are real disadvantages to the "objects-as-C-structs" and functions/methods which "mutate" based on argument type. i.e. S4. (1)Novices simply don't understand it. Students are trained in "standard" object-oriented technique and this wonkish offshoot(puritanical functional programming) just increases the information costs to using R and thus decreases the demand.
+- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+ | *NEW* email: jtk@cmp.uea.ac.uk | | *NEW* WWW: http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/people/jtk | *-----=< hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans >=-----*