Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
Roger Bivand wrote: Just [use] MinGW like R [does], following the guides to the letter gets you there like marked stones across a marsh. Leaving the path usually gets you at best neck deep in the mire, alternatively just bubbles. That's the strongest contender for a space in the fortune file I've seen for a while! __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
[Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for several reasons: To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can begin to use S4 methods in R. To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R To be able to contribute a package someday. I have been doing some reading and from what I can tell R is more compatible with C, but C++ has much greater capabilities for OO programming. I have just started reading The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition by Bjarne Stroustrup http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Bjarne+Stro ustrupz=y , he recommends first learning C++ and then then C if necessary, but as a developer of C++, he is probably biased. I would greatly appreciate the advice of the R developers and package contributors on this subject. C or C++? Thanks, Mark Mark W. Kimpel MD Official Business Address: Department of Psychiatry Indiana University School of Medicine PR M116 Institute of Psychiatric Research 791 Union Drive Indianapolis, IN 46202 Preferred Mailing Address: 15032 Hunter Court Westfield, IN 46074 (317) 490-5129 Work, Mobile (317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please) 1-(317)-536-2730 FAX [[alternative HTML version deleted]] __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On 1/19/2007 3:55 AM, Kimpel, Mark William wrote: I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for several reasons: To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can begin to use S4 methods in R. To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R To be able to contribute a package someday. I have been doing some reading and from what I can tell R is more compatible with C, but C++ has much greater capabilities for OO programming. I have just started reading The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition by Bjarne Stroustrup http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Bjarne+Stro ustrupz=y , he recommends first learning C++ and then then C if necessary, but as a developer of C++, he is probably biased. I would greatly appreciate the advice of the R developers and package contributors on this subject. C or C++? For your purposes, I would recommend C. Most example code you'll find is written in C, so it's easier to learn by looking at simple examples written by others. The R external interface was designed with C in mind, so you need to tell C++ to act like C to use it. Regarding OOP, I think the C++ style of OOP is so different from S4 that it would not actually be helpful in learning S4. As far as I know, none of the languages that are easy to link to R use the same style of OOP. On the other hand, taking a disciplined approach to C programming is a good idea (which is I think what Stroustrup had in mind). I'd suggest an object oriented Pascal (e.g. Delphi) or Java if that's what you want, because they are simpler than C++. C and R are very permissive languages, and if you take advantage of that you can write amazingly sloppy and unmaintainable code. Duncan Murdoch __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
You don't necessarily need to know C or C++ to write an R package. Many (maybe most) R packages only use R. On 1/19/07, Kimpel, Mark William [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for several reasons: To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can begin to use S4 methods in R. To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R To be able to contribute a package someday. I have been doing some reading and from what I can tell R is more compatible with C, but C++ has much greater capabilities for OO programming. I have just started reading The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition by Bjarne Stroustrup http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Bjarne+Stro ustrupz=y , he recommends first learning C++ and then then C if necessary, but as a developer of C++, he is probably biased. I would greatly appreciate the advice of the R developers and package contributors on this subject. C or C++? Thanks, Mark Mark W. Kimpel MD Official Business Address: Department of Psychiatry Indiana University School of Medicine PR M116 Institute of Psychiatric Research 791 Union Drive Indianapolis, IN 46202 Preferred Mailing Address: 15032 Hunter Court Westfield, IN 46074 (317) 490-5129 Work, Mobile (317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please) 1-(317)-536-2730 FAX [[alternative HTML version deleted]] __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
Dear Mark,
On Friday 19 January 2007 09:55, Kimpel, Mark William wrote:
I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a
better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute
packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel
Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for
several reasons:
To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can
begin to use S4 methods in R.
I do not think C++ is the best idea if you are learning it to understand the
OOP of R. The OOP of R is probably closer to that of CLOS (the common lisp
object system) than C++ and Java.
It might be better to directly go ahead and look for documentation specificaly
about R's OOP.
To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R
To be able to contribute a package someday.
I have been doing some reading and from what I can tell R is more
compatible with C, but C++ has much greater capabilities for OO
programming.
I have just started reading The C++ Programming Language: Special
Edition by Bjarne Stroustrup
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Bjarne+Stro
ustrupz=y , he recommends first learning C++ and then then C if
necessary, but as a developer of C++, he is probably biased.
I would greatly appreciate the advice of the R developers and package
contributors on this subject. C or C++?
I'd recommend C instead of C++: C++ is a huge language and it is somewhat
easier to interface C than C++ from R. (In non-R stuff I prefer to use C++
better than C, even if just as in C++as a better C, but this probably is
not a reasonable reason to learn C++).
HTH,
R.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark W. Kimpel MD
Official Business Address:
Department of Psychiatry
Indiana University School of Medicine
PR M116
Institute of Psychiatric Research
791 Union Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Preferred Mailing Address:
15032 Hunter Court
Westfield, IN 46074
(317) 490-5129 Work, Mobile
(317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please)
1-(317)-536-2730 FAX
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
__
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
--
Ramón Díaz-Uriarte
Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO)
(Spanish National Cancer Center)
Melchor Fernández Almagro, 3
28029 Madrid (Spain)
Fax: +-34-91-224-6972
Phone: +-34-91-224-6900
http://ligarto.org/rdiaz
PGP KeyID: 0xE89B3462
(http://ligarto.org/rdiaz/0xE89B3462.asc)
**NOTA DE CONFIDENCIALIDAD** Este correo electrónico, y en s...{{dropped}}
__
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
Mark, Great question. As Gabor said, if it is just for R, there is no point in learning C or C++. However, learning new programming paradigms is very useful in and by itself, and being able to extend R with C, C++ or Fortran is extremely useful for R. I would suggest what I jokingly call 'C+' -- use C++, ignore many of the advanced features for the next little while, and treat it as a 'better C'. There is no cost in terms of R extensibility. Concentrate on the first third or so of Stroustrup's book as well as others. There are also many tutorials out there on the net. Lastly, if it is just for learning other OO paradigms, Python and Ruby are both excellent, widely used and well documented on the net. I speak neither very well but have been meaning to learn either or both better for longer than I'd care to admit in public. Cheers, Dirk -- Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. -- Thomas A. Edison __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
Kimpel, Mark William wrote: I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for several reasons: To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can begin to use S4 methods in R. To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R To be able to contribute a package someday. If you decide to use C++ with R you should check out the documentation that comes with the package RcppTemplate, and the sample code that comes with that package. In my experience C++ (or C or FORTRAN) is needed for many compute intensive tasks, and the R framework provides a nice front-end with its extensive collection of visualization and statistical analysis tools. Disclaimer: I have no experience with S4. ds __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On 1/19/07, Dominick Samperi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kimpel, Mark William wrote: I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for several reasons: To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can begin to use S4 methods in R. To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R To be able to contribute a package someday. If you decide to use C++ with R you should check out the documentation that comes with the package RcppTemplate, and the sample code that comes with that package. In my experience C++ (or C or FORTRAN) is needed for many compute intensive tasks, and the R framework provides a nice front-end with its extensive collection of visualization and statistical analysis tools. Actually I have found the opposite. I have never found C/C++ to be necessary. I have always been able to optimize the R code itself to get it to run sufficiently fast for my purposes. __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On Friday 19 January 2007 1:29 pm, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: If you decide to use C++ with R you should check out the documentation that comes with the package RcppTemplate, and the sample code that comes with that package. In my experience C++ (or C or FORTRAN) is needed for many compute intensive tasks, and the R framework provides a nice front-end with its extensive collection of visualization and statistical analysis tools. Actually I have found the opposite. I have never found C/C++ to be necessary. I have always been able to optimize the R code itself to get it to run sufficiently fast for my purposes. The nice thing about being able to use C code is that this provides confidence that however slowly your R script runs right now you will be able to make it faster - no matter what. On quite a few occasions I have started writing C code and after thinking about how I would structure it realized that I can do the same thing in R and still get 50% of the speed improvement I get from C. Also, I am not sure whether this is mentioned anywhere, but I found it to be more convenient to use dyn.load directly instead of creating a full-blown R package. This way the edit-compile-test cycle is much more convenient. best Vladimir Dergachev __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
Thanks to all for your excellent suggestions. I think will I proceed working through the Stroustrup book. He has a section on comparing C with C++ and one on working with legacy C code that may prove helpful. I also have a C for Dummies (something like that, I don't have it right next to me) that I have also been reading. A couple of follow-up questions: 1. As I understand it, if I just wanted to distribute compiled code, I could use whatever extended C or C++ libraries that I wanted to use, however, since R is open source and people need to be able to compile things themselves, I imagine I would get into trouble (figuratively) using, say, the C++ STL. Would I need to distribute these files as well? For example, iostream instead of stdio.h. Or, should I just not use those? 2. For those of you who develop C on Windows (probably a small bunch!), what is your preferred development environment? I have the free Borland Turbo C++ and Visual C++ 6.0 (I knew enough to stay away from .NET). I tried to install the C++ module for Eclipse and, for me at least, it was a nightmare. I am not UNIX or DOS savvy and setting path variables and the like just made things too complicated. 3. Lastly, is there a C or C++ community similar to R that I could address questions relating to those languages to? I don't want to abuse the R list as I learn. Thanks, Mark Mark W. Kimpel MD (317) 490-5129 Work, Mobile (317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please) 1-(317)-536-2730 FAX __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On 1/19/2007 10:04 AM, Kimpel, Mark William wrote: Thanks to all for your excellent suggestions. I think will I proceed working through the Stroustrup book. He has a section on comparing C with C++ and one on working with legacy C code that may prove helpful. I also have a C for Dummies (something like that, I don't have it right next to me) that I have also been reading. A couple of follow-up questions: 1. As I understand it, if I just wanted to distribute compiled code, I could use whatever extended C or C++ libraries that I wanted to use, however, since R is open source and people need to be able to compile things themselves, I imagine I would get into trouble (figuratively) using, say, the C++ STL. Would I need to distribute these files as well? For example, iostream instead of stdio.h. Or, should I just not use those? The STL is available on most platforms, as far as I know. Some more specialized libraries (e.g. GSL, database access, OpenGL) are more trouble. If you want to use the more specialized ones, I'd try compiling your package using the standard build tools on one or two platforms, and see what happens. 2. For those of you who develop C on Windows (probably a small bunch!), what is your preferred development environment? I have the free Borland Turbo C++ and Visual C++ 6.0 (I knew enough to stay away from .NET). I tried to install the C++ module for Eclipse and, for me at least, it was a nightmare. I am not UNIX or DOS savvy and setting path variables and the like just made things too complicated. R uses the MinGW gcc compiler on Windows, so you need to have it available to build your packages when you get to that, but it doesn't have a nice IDE like those others. Some purists hate IDEs, but I think they are very helpful. I've never used Turbo C++ and rarely used MSVC++, so I can't really recommend one over the other, but I did like the Borland IDE for Pascal/Delphi. Duncan Murdoch 3. Lastly, is there a C or C++ community similar to R that I could address questions relating to those languages to? I don't want to abuse the R list as I learn. Thanks, Mark Mark W. Kimpel MD (317) 490-5129 Work, Mobile (317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please) 1-(317)-536-2730 FAX __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 03:55:30AM -0500, Kimpel, Mark William wrote: I have 3 years of experience with R and have an interest in becoming a better programmer so that I might someday be able to contribute packages. Other than R, my only experience was taking Lisp from Daniel Friedman in the 1970's. I would like to learn either C or C++ for several reasons: To gain a better concept of object oriented programming so that I can begin to use S4 methods in R. To perhaps speed up some things I do repeatedly in R To be able to contribute a package someday. I have been doing some reading and from what I can tell R is more compatible with C, but C++ has much greater capabilities for OO programming. I have just started reading The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition by Bjarne Stroustrup http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Bjarne+Stro ustrupz=y , he recommends first learning C++ and then then C if necessary, but as a developer of C++, he is probably biased. I would greatly appreciate the advice of the R developers and package contributors on this subject. C or C++? To echo several other comments, if your goal is to work in R, it would be best to go straight to R. I haven't used lisp much, but I believe it is much closer to R than most other languages you could pick. It has a functional style, and I recall reading the R's scoping rules were directly inspired by Scheme, a Lisp variant. In fact, I didn't feel I fully grasped them until I looked at Abelson and Sussman's Structure and Interpretation of Computer Languages (which uses Scheme). The functional OO of R is significantly different from the class-based OO found in most languages calling themselves object oriented, including C++, Java, Python and smalltalk. Learning those other languages to understand R could actually interfere with learning R. If and when you need speed, you can program in any language that supports Fortran or C interfaces, which is almost all of them. If you're just doing general education I use C++ in R, and I have to say that programming in C++ is a wretched experience. You have to make a major committment to learning the language, which is a minefield of gotcha's, to use it in full OO style. As others on this list and Stroustrup suggest, you can use it and just incrementally add features over what you would do in C. It can also be speedy and powerful (to run, not to program in!), which is why I'm using it. For pure OO, I think you can't beat smalltalk, which is freely available at www.squeak.org (also there is a GNU and several commerical versions). The language rules and syntax fit on one page. The catch is that to use it you need to learn the environment and the class library; these too are big tasks. Objective-C is a much more lightweight C'ish OO than C++ (the author moved smalltalk concepts into C). It's available as part of the GNU compilers. Unlike smalltalk, you might use it if you cared about performance, and it's the native language of Mac OS-X. It has a relatively small learning curve. Python and Java are other choices for OO, both significantly simpler than C++. I find Python to be simple and elegant; it's also nifty for scripting random tasks. Java's widely used on the web and in the enterprise. Eiffel is also interesting. I can't say much about libraries already on other machines, but the C runtime is probably the one you can count on being there the most. Of course, another route would be to explore other functional languages, a terrain I barely know: Haskell, ML, OCaml... In particular, some of them have lazy evaluation of arguments, which R also employs. And there are the functional/object languages like CLOS (I think the O in OCaml is Object). Anyway, this risks becoming a general language thread. My main point, as someone who's been there, is don't use C++ unless you have a compelling reason and a lot of time! Ross Boylan (Among the languages listed, the ones I've used extensively are C, C++, Objective-C, Python, R, and smalltalk.) __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Roger Bivand wrote: On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Kimpel, Mark William wrote: Thanks to all for your excellent suggestions. I think will I proceed [snip] Commenting on writing R packages with portable C/C++ code: [F]ollowing the guides to the letter gets you there like marked stones across a marsh. Leaving the path usually gets you at best neck deep in the mire, alternatively just bubbles. Fortune! [snip] Charles C. Berry(858) 534-2098 Dept of Family/Preventive Medicine E mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] UC San Diego http://biostat.ucsd.edu/~cberry/ La Jolla, San Diego 92093-0901 __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] C vs. C++ as learning and development tool for R
On Friday 19 January 2007 6:46 pm, Ross Boylan wrote: On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 03:55:30AM -0500, Kimpel, Mark William wrote: I can't say much about libraries already on other machines, but the C runtime is probably the one you can count on being there the most. Well, I don't think it is there on Windows machines - and it is specific to the compiler. Visual C has several different versions, Borland had its own and there were several major releases of GNU C library. My preference is that on Windows one only distributes static binaries, or, uses a small loadable object (i.e. dll) from Tcl/Tk or R. On Linux I found it is best to link C and X11/GL libraries dynamically (as older versions are usually available) and link everything else statically. Major exception: condor linked binaries are static. Caveat - I have not distributed anything but GPL/LGPL code, so making static binaries was not an issue. If you have a closed source application than any LGPL libraries you use must be linked dynamically and you cannot use GPL code at all. best Vladimir Dergachev __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
