The dirty secret of R is that all the power now comes from C++, the wrapper just has sexy viz. Come at me #RStats
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Well, by design, and called "Interface" a full fourty-five years ago (when using only Fortran). See Chambers (2020) and his books for more (and e.g. references in my presentations) with the famous Bell Labs drawing of the "Interface". #rstats dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/33863…

S, R, and data science | Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

Data science is increasingly important and challenging. It requires computational tools and programming environments that handle big data and difficult computations, while supporting creative,...

dl.acm.org
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The reference mentioned in my previous is e.g. on this slide from my useR! 2020 tutorial: #rstats
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So do you think it unusual that various users of the "interface" develop packages based on connecting back into the underlying base languages? Was that envisaged from the start??
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Replying to @PadreBallantyne
No, and yes. John expressed this as "turning users into programmers". So both natural and normal. And 40 years after "Interface", he wrote an entire book about it. In it, Principle III states "Interfaces to other software a part of R" #rstats routledge.com/Extending-R/Ch…

Extending R

Up-to-Date Guidance from One of the Foremost Members of the R Core Team Written by John M. Chambers, the leading developer of the original S software, Extending R covers key concepts and techniques...

routledge.com

Dec 16, 2021 · 2:00 PM UTC

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Replying to @eddelbuettel
Thanks! Although I find that "turning users into programmers" is essential even for base R. From my area (economics) I have been wondering about how to reduce the programming burden to spend more time on application of principles. Packages are essential, but could it go further?