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This has been said before multiple times over but with these languages it is rarely about the languages themselves but their ecosystems: https://cran.r-project

This has been said before multiple times over but with these languages it is rarely about the languages themselves but their ecosystems: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/available_packages_by_name.html https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/available_packages_b... To go from R to Julia, as an example, one would have to give up on a hundred or so high-quality packages potentially related to their activities.

BrandonS113 4y ago
That is exactly the issue. No language comes close to the richness of the R statistical package ecosystem.
- dunefox 4y ago
  It's not an issue at all with RCall and PyCall.
  - BrandonS113 4y ago
    Of course it is, sometimes one needs to pass data represented as R objects (like zoo) to R functions, and receiving something that is an R object and to be worked on by R calls before being passed on. That is very clumsy to manage with RCall.
    - RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
      A perfect example of this is image processing. Is is delightful in working with spatial raster data. It's an 'it just works' space, especially with raster and stars. There have been several attempts to disrupt the raster package but none have really stuck. Granted, it's not fast. However trying to do the same kinds of things in python with rasterio is just cludgy. And half the time you end up making system calls to gdal anyways. Guess what? I can make the system calls from R too.
getoffmycase 4y ago
Having looked at a large number of R packages source code, I do hesitate to freely label R packages as generally high-quality. I’ve been operating on the “trust, but verify” principle
NicolasL-S 4y ago
You don't have to. Just use Rcall. Of course R has been here longer. Eleven years after its creation, R had fewer than 500 packages. Julia was released in 2012 and today has over 7,000 packages.
- vitorsr 4y ago
  R Cited in: 8,589 Publications 7,353 [Citing Publications in] Statistics (62-XX) https://zbmath.org/software/771 Julia Cited in: 442 Publications 64 [Citing Publications in] Statistics (62-XX) https://zbmath.org/software/13986

BrandonS113 4y ago

That is exactly the issue. No language comes close to the richness of the R statistical package ecosystem.

dunefox 4y ago
It's not an issue at all with RCall and PyCall.
- BrandonS113 4y ago
  Of course it is, sometimes one needs to pass data represented as R objects (like zoo) to R functions, and receiving something that is an R object and to be worked on by R calls before being passed on. That is very clumsy to manage with RCall.
  - RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
    A perfect example of this is image processing. Is is delightful in working with spatial raster data. It's an 'it just works' space, especially with raster and stars. There have been several attempts to disrupt the raster package but none have really stuck. Granted, it's not fast. However trying to do the same kinds of things in python with rasterio is just cludgy. And half the time you end up making system calls to gdal anyways. Guess what? I can make the system calls from R too.

getoffmycase 4y ago

Having looked at a large number of R packages source code, I do hesitate to freely label R packages as generally high-quality. I’ve been operating on the “trust, but verify” principle

NicolasL-S 4y ago

You don't have to. Just use Rcall. Of course R has been here longer. Eleven years after its creation, R had fewer than 500 packages. Julia was released in 2012 and today has over 7,000 packages.

vitorsr 4y ago
R Cited in: 8,589 Publications 7,353 [Citing Publications in] Statistics (62-XX) https://zbmath.org/software/771 Julia Cited in: 442 Publications 64 [Citing Publications in] Statistics (62-XX) https://zbmath.org/software/13986