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R got a simplicity boost with the "tidyverse", R studio and ggplot, all driven by Hadley Wickham. at its core, R is a very straightforward language. however i

by froh 5y ago

R got a simplicity boost with the "tidyverse", R studio and ggplot, all driven by Hadley Wickham. at its core, R is a very straightforward language. however it never had a benevolent dictator who gave it consistency, elegance and style. Hadley is compensating that a bit.

asdff 5y ago
I'd argue that tidyverse is entirely nonconsistent with the rest of R, though. At least base R packages all operate in an "R-way," so learning this syntax helps you with other packages that others try to write in an "R-way," while tidyverse only operates in a tidyverse way that you can't take your syntax knowledge with you to other packages. I'd say the learning curve for making a sexy plot is a lot shorter with tidyverse, but overall, relying on it handicaps you versus spending the half hour longer to do the same thing with base graphics (or a base-like package).
- roenxi 5y ago
  > I'd argue that tidyverse is entirely nonconsistent with the rest of R Well, yes, but that is part of the reason why it is so popular. R may be written by world-leading language design experts - but it doesn't show! > ...relying on it handicaps you versus spending... There is almost no reason to drop out of tidyverse if the problem domain is visualising data. Most people could go an entire career as an analyst using just ggplot + tidyverse. If something needs to be plotted and ggplot won't work it probably makes sense to drop out of R and go straight to TikZ or OpenGL.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I think these tools hurt beginners a lot, personally. You have to learn R no matter what you use to plot, but if you want to use tidyverse you have to now learn that too, and the logic you learn there might not transfer over to the rest of R that you are gonna have to learn no matter what, and can lead to confusion. It doesn't help that stackoverflow uses R or tidyverse code interchangably and its up to the beginner to spend time figuring out what is what. I think it even adds to the notion I see, even here on HN in this thread, that R is some awkward unlearnable monstrous thing that has no place. It is that, when you start adding all these different packages and syntax conventions without thinking if your solution can be implemented trivially with base R. I find base R pretty similar to python with small caveats like you don't use loops and you apply functions instead.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      I completely agree, in opposition. This is all true, and makes strong case for deprecating base R and replacing big chunks of the language with tidyverse equivalents. I would certainly encourage the people maintaining the language to reflect on your points with that in mind as an option.
  - froh 5y ago
    > tikz, OpenGL or D3.js
jklowden 5y ago
A lot can be said in favor of R, but "straightforward" is a debatable description. The semantics of R were never really designed, and were only recently "discovered", post hoc. See "Evaluating the Design of the R Language" (http://janvitek.org/pubs/ecoop12.pdf http://janvitek.org/pubs/ecoop12.pdf).
Fomite 5y ago
I think it's somewhat more complex than that. I think tidyverse-R, which is a quasiseparate language, is only simple with complete buy in, and involves a lot of magic, shorthand, and "These are the symbols I put into the machine to get X back out".

by froh 5y ago

asdff 5y ago

I'd argue that tidyverse is entirely nonconsistent with the rest of R, though. At least base R packages all operate in an "R-way," so learning this syntax helps you with other packages that others try to write in an "R-way," while tidyverse only operates in a tidyverse way that you can't take your syntax knowledge with you to other packages. I'd say the learning curve for making a sexy plot is a lot shorter with tidyverse, but overall, relying on it handicaps you versus spending the half hour longer to do the same thing with base graphics (or a base-like package).

roenxi 5y ago
> I'd argue that tidyverse is entirely nonconsistent with the rest of R Well, yes, but that is part of the reason why it is so popular. R may be written by world-leading language design experts - but it doesn't show! > ...relying on it handicaps you versus spending... There is almost no reason to drop out of tidyverse if the problem domain is visualising data. Most people could go an entire career as an analyst using just ggplot + tidyverse. If something needs to be plotted and ggplot won't work it probably makes sense to drop out of R and go straight to TikZ or OpenGL.
- asdff 5y ago
  I think these tools hurt beginners a lot, personally. You have to learn R no matter what you use to plot, but if you want to use tidyverse you have to now learn that too, and the logic you learn there might not transfer over to the rest of R that you are gonna have to learn no matter what, and can lead to confusion. It doesn't help that stackoverflow uses R or tidyverse code interchangably and its up to the beginner to spend time figuring out what is what. I think it even adds to the notion I see, even here on HN in this thread, that R is some awkward unlearnable monstrous thing that has no place. It is that, when you start adding all these different packages and syntax conventions without thinking if your solution can be implemented trivially with base R. I find base R pretty similar to python with small caveats like you don't use loops and you apply functions instead.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    I completely agree, in opposition. This is all true, and makes strong case for deprecating base R and replacing big chunks of the language with tidyverse equivalents. I would certainly encourage the people maintaining the language to reflect on your points with that in mind as an option.
- froh 5y ago
  > tikz, OpenGL or D3.js

jklowden 5y ago

A lot can be said in favor of R, but "straightforward" is a debatable description. The semantics of R were never really designed, and were only recently "discovered", post hoc. See "Evaluating the Design of the R Language" (http://janvitek.org/pubs/ecoop12.pdf http://janvitek.org/pubs/ecoop12.pdf).

Fomite 5y ago

I think it's somewhat more complex than that. I think tidyverse-R, which is a quasiseparate language, is only simple with complete buy in, and involves a lot of magic, shorthand, and "These are the symbols I put into the machine to get X back out".