I agree: one should try to write R in R especially if you are like me and just want to do statistical analysis or throw some math at data. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dirk Eddelbuettel" <edd@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <tech-spec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 12:23 PM Subject: [tech-spec] Re: R arguments > On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 12:06:32PM -0400, Tom McCubbin wrote: > > Thank you. I thought my text was invisible. > > > > I too have a tool (Tom's Big Fat Trader). The name is not perfectly > > suitable, as it is really for back testing, simulating the > > impact/interelationships of models, allocation models, and dynamic > > universe constraints. As well as analysis of the results. > > > > It is written in C++, and uses a system to load modules at runtime that > > can implement various components of the system(s). However, it is not > > accessible to many due to the language, so i'm embedding python into the > > system to make it scriptable and improve productivity. I looked at Rpy > > and was not too keen on its implementation. So i am considering > > re-wraping R to make it more friendly from Python. > > > > Do you have any input on what you would like to see in an enhanced > > R-wrapper to Python? I'm happy to contrib the code if it is > > helpful...i'm a long time open source guy. > > Have you seen Duncan Temple Lang's work (formerly Bell Labs / ATT Research, > now at UC Davis) at wwww.omegahat.org? He has a _ton_ of projects many of > which involve embedding R into other things (databases, browsers, general > toolkits like Gtk, spreadsheets like gnumeric, etc pp ...) as well as links > to other language such as Java, Perl, Python. He has a genius-level > productivity, but never quite manages to get his software to broad release / > production level. I am Debian maintainer for some of his code, and had many > goes at packaging RSPerl and RSPython but never quite found them > sufficiently developed to do it. > > To fully tie Python to R you need a better than average understanding of the > innards of the two systems. That limits the number of contributors and > excludes me. But you could talk to people on the r-devel list (which I read) > or on the omegahat lists (which I don't read, not sure how active theys > still are). > > Personally, I changed my viewpoint over the years and now think that R gets > so many things so darn right when it comes to data work, is cross-platform, > robust and easily extensible (with e.g. C++) that I'd make it the core > rather than the satellite. But recognising the uphill struggle that leanring > the S language is, I can see how loosely coupling it may be a better first > step for getting a toe in the water. > > Dirk > > > -- > Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. > -- Groucho Marx > >