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S (R's ancestor) was developed in the mid-70s and 80s, at least a decade before Python was written. Then couldn't your argument be applied to those working on P

S (R's ancestor) was developed in the mid-70s and 80s, at least a decade before Python was written. Then couldn't your argument be applied to those working on Python data science tools? Variety is the spice of life. :)

jhbadger 10y ago
No, because the issue isn't that new programming languages and their libraries shouldn't be developed (and I'm a big fan of new languages with new paradigms) but whether the new languages should be general purpose or not. I'd argue that the development of S was misstep, and one which would have been completely forgotten by now if not for R and the libraries written for it.
- hadley 10y ago
  No, one language (Python) isn't the right tool for every job.
- RA_Fisher 10y ago
  Before S there were onerous Fortran routines. Rich Becker, one of the authors of S gave a really interesting talk about this at the useR conference this year, you should check it out if you haven't already: http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2016/07/rick-becker-s-talk.html http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2016/07/rick-becker-s-ta... You say that developing S was a misstep, what decision would you have made instead? Build on Fortran?
  - jhbadger 10y ago
    option 1) S was created at AT&T, the home of UNIX and C. Imagine if statistical functionality had been made a standard part of C rather than developing a new language. While C is maybe not that popular anymore, current languages like Java and C# inherit from it, and we would have a world in which statistical functions were taken as given as part of the default libraries of any language. option 2) Use another standard language like LISP. This actually was done in the excellent LISP-STAT system. Unfortunately it came out at kind of the wrong time for LISP. These days LISP is kind of undergoing a renaissance with Clojure, Racket, LFE, etc., but in the 1990s it was more associated with the failed AI efforts of the symbolic school and LISP was just seen as this weird thing with lots of parentheses by many people. The thing is I use R every day. But like everybody else, I bury it under lots of add ons like Hadley's and others to make it palatable by hiding as much of the absurd R syntax as possible. That's like dumping ketchup on foul tasting food. Is this really what we want to do?
    - lispm 10y ago
      https://github.com/blindglobe/common-lisp-stat https://github.com/blindglobe/common-lisp-stat
    - RA_Fisher 10y ago
      That'd add a lot of baggage to C that's really beyond its core mission. It'd also slow down development of statistical interfaces (that lag far behind the stability of systems interfaces). Thank you for responding, but I'm not convinced.

jhbadger 10y ago

No, because the issue isn't that new programming languages and their libraries shouldn't be developed (and I'm a big fan of new languages with new paradigms) but whether the new languages should be general purpose or not. I'd argue that the development of S was misstep, and one which would have been completely forgotten by now if not for R and the libraries written for it.

hadley 10y ago
No, one language (Python) isn't the right tool for every job.
RA_Fisher 10y ago
Before S there were onerous Fortran routines. Rich Becker, one of the authors of S gave a really interesting talk about this at the useR conference this year, you should check it out if you haven't already: http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2016/07/rick-becker-s-talk.html http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2016/07/rick-becker-s-ta... You say that developing S was a misstep, what decision would you have made instead? Build on Fortran?
- jhbadger 10y ago
  option 1) S was created at AT&T, the home of UNIX and C. Imagine if statistical functionality had been made a standard part of C rather than developing a new language. While C is maybe not that popular anymore, current languages like Java and C# inherit from it, and we would have a world in which statistical functions were taken as given as part of the default libraries of any language. option 2) Use another standard language like LISP. This actually was done in the excellent LISP-STAT system. Unfortunately it came out at kind of the wrong time for LISP. These days LISP is kind of undergoing a renaissance with Clojure, Racket, LFE, etc., but in the 1990s it was more associated with the failed AI efforts of the symbolic school and LISP was just seen as this weird thing with lots of parentheses by many people. The thing is I use R every day. But like everybody else, I bury it under lots of add ons like Hadley's and others to make it palatable by hiding as much of the absurd R syntax as possible. That's like dumping ketchup on foul tasting food. Is this really what we want to do?
  - lispm 10y ago
    https://github.com/blindglobe/common-lisp-stat https://github.com/blindglobe/common-lisp-stat
  - RA_Fisher 10y ago
    That'd add a lot of baggage to C that's really beyond its core mission. It'd also slow down development of statistical interfaces (that lag far behind the stability of systems interfaces). Thank you for responding, but I'm not convinced.