[Rcpp-devel] Dependence on GNU make because of $(shell)

[Romain Francois]

Dominick,

Le 17/11/10 02:49, Dominick Samperi a écrit :
[...]
>
>         Correction here. That package that was left "dead and rotting"
>         on CRAN
>         was updated by its author (that would be me) in November of 2009 to
>         include object-mapping features that were later reimplemented in
>         what
>         is now known as the Rcpp package.The syntax used for these features
>         in Rcpp is Rcpp::as and Rcpp:wrap.
>
>
>     wrap and as for which I took the lead have nothing to do with any
>     code you wrote, whatever you want to believe, whatever you want
>     people that read you to believe. I personally don't think I'd ever
>     want to import ideas from your code. I'm creative enough as it is.
>
>
>         Shortly after I released this work the following comment was
>         added to
>         the README file for Rcpp (version 0.8.3):
>
>         "As of November 2009, Dominick has re-commenced maintenance of
>         RcppTemplate
>         with new releases on CRAN.  This may provide a good opportunity
>         to import
>         some new ideas into Rcpp as well, time permitting."
>
>
>     again with this ! this was "may" not "will" and it just never
>     happened ! this sentence is no longer in the README, simply because
>     we just never import ideas from your RcppTemplate, just as much as
>     we are not imoprting ideas from your cxxPack or whetever name you'll
>     give to the next versions.  It just happened that we can come up
>     with better ideas on our own.
>
>
> How do you know that your ideas are better if you did not first look at
> the ideas
> that came before? Is this not importing ideas? Isn't the use the name
> 'Rcpp' an import?
> You have simply taken my song and are singing it in your own way!
>
> It is good that the CRAN code cannot be modified once it is submitted.
> Anyone with programming
> skills who cares can diff the code in question at the time in question
> (Nov 2009) and settle this
> matter objectively. You (Romain) were recruited to join the Rcpp project
> *after* this date,

I was not recruited.

I have been able for myself to identify that the Rcpp at the time was 
not good enough, lacked some expertise in the R API, and to some extent 
lacked some common sense in the C++ code.

So I joined, and initially just wanted to fix a few things.

But then, I had been so unimpressed of the classic code that we ended up 
making what is the current Rcpp API, with code that is better, safer, 
faster, more robust, more tested, more documented, more used ...

> and you have indeed made some valuable contributions over the past year
> (some of
> the ideas already appeared in RcppTemplate).

I don't even know what code of yours you are referring to, please 
contribute a document or something highlighting the precise redundancies 
of your code with Rcpp::as and Rcpp:::wrap.

I'm sure people are desperate to read this.

> The ongoing
> support provided by you and Dirk is also a valuable service to the R
> community.

The ongoing irritating emails by you are a useless and painfull service 
to the R community

> That said, I do not think it is very productive for you to trash work
> that formed the foundation
> the Rcpp project.

I don't care what you think about how my productivity should be 
dispatched.

> BTW, I am using Rcpp in my cxxPack package (to be updated shortly)
> because I do not
> want to reinvent the wheel, and because Rcpp seems to have become part
> of R core
> development.

Rcpp is not part of R core development.

> One concern I have is that the "wheel" is getting pretty
> big. Rcpp was
> originally intended to be a lightweight solution to the R/C++ interface
> problem.

So what !

Nobody forces you (believe me) to use Rcpp. Feel free not to. Feel free 
(you are) to release a subset of it to accomodate your lightweight 
desires. Feel free to bring back RcppTemplate. Perhaps you can call it 
RcppWasMyIdea this time. Feel free to take whatever snapshot in time, 
subset it and include it in your cxxPack.

-- 
Romain Francois
Professional R Enthusiast
+33(0) 6 28 91 30 30
http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
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