While this is a great article, it also transmits some truth about R: writing anything fast is a pain in the ass. Especially frustrating when you hear those R "e

While this is a great article, it also transmits some truth about R: writing anything fast is a pain in the ass. Especially frustrating when you hear those R "experts" repeating "use apply" functions. The truth is, the design of the language requires you to actually learn some dirty details and NOT solely rely on the idiomatic syntax. I like R quite much, but this is a sign of a bad language design.