| R for Astronomers [message #65384] |
Mon, 02 March 2009 11:54  |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Folks,
I not *really* advocating we all give up IDL for R,
but there are some things R does better than IDL. And,
I readily admit, there are a *ton* of things IDL does
better than R.
But R does show up in the strangest places these
days. Here is a site that came to my attention this
morning that has tips for astronomers.
http://www.sr.bham.ac.uk/~ajrs/r-project.html
It might be worth having a look.
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming (www.dfanning.com)
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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| Re: R for Astronomers [message #65495 is a reply to message #65384] |
Fri, 06 March 2009 07:22  |
ben.bighair
Messages: 221
Registered: April 2007
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Senior Member |
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On Mar 5, 2:09 pm, Mike <Michael.Mill...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 12:10 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
>
>> Other news about R this morning: R is not immune
>> from the "sky is falling" problem either:
>> http://tinyurl.com/ap7hdq
>
> No which of my loves I chose, I will always shoot myself in the other
> foot eventually. :-)
Hi,
Some folks might initially shy away from R based upon its pass-by-
value behavior as it comes out of the box. For big blobs of data that
can be a real pain. It would be a mistake, however, to think that R
can't pass by reference. I won't pretend to understand how it works,
but some of the clever R authors have developed techniques to employ
pass-by-reference in R. One example is the pretty-easy-to-use R.oo
(http://www1.maths.lth.se/help/R/R.oo/), but there are other examples
in R.
> But I
> still use IDL for many, many things. Computer languages are not quite
> like marriage - I think it is acceptable to be in serious
> relationships with more than one at a time. Of course juggling
> multiple relationships is fraught with danger - witness my continual
> print, x in R and print(x) in IDL...
Man, you can say that again! Another is IDL>source("my_program.pro")
and R>.compile "my_program.r" Argh!
Cheers,
Ben
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| Re: R for Astronomers [message #65501 is a reply to message #65384] |
Thu, 05 March 2009 11:09 |
Mike[2]
Messages: 99
Registered: December 2005
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Member |
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On Mar 5, 12:10 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> Other news about R this morning: R is not immune
> from the "sky is falling" problem either:
> http://tinyurl.com/ap7hdq
No which of my loves I chose, I will always shoot myself in the other
foot eventually. :-)
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| Re: R for Astronomers [message #65510 is a reply to message #65442] |
Thu, 05 March 2009 06:19 |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Mike writes:
> I originally picked up R several years ago as a tool for making high
> quality graphics. IMHO, R beats IDL hands down for ease and quality
> of plots. And for statistics, well, that's what it is for. I've
> never even considered using IDL for mixed-effect modeling. But I
> still use IDL for many, many things. Computer languages are not quite
> like marriage - I think it is acceptable to be in serious
> relationships with more than one at a time. Of course juggling
> multiple relationships is fraught with danger - witness my continual
> print, x in R and print(x) in IDL...
Here is a poem I ran across this morning that sums
the matter up nicely:
http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14309
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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