
An implementation of the R Language in Java - ghosthamlet
https://github.com/allr/fastr
======
sramsay
Ye Gods! Do you mean to say that this is not an implementation of x in
Javascript? [1]

[1] Values for x might include Linux, the XBox, the Apollo Guidance Computer,
Intercal, Apache, the French language, the Haskell compiler, Hacker News, Call
of Duty, iOS, and Javascript.

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Create
<https://code.google.com/p/renjin/>

~~~
felixr
From a quick glance I see the following differences:

Renjin

    
    
      - development started in 2011
      - GPL v3 licensed
      - working on a custom JIT compiler
    

fastr

    
    
      - development started Aug 2012
      - Apache v2 License
      - uses Truffle and the Graal JIT

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simonster
> "FastR is can run the R implementation of the Language Shootout Benchmarks."

Can someone show us the results of these benchmarks? As recently discussed in
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5565056>,
<http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/> lists only the most popular
implementation of each language, so it seems like they'll never show up there.

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cschmidt
So do either fastr or renjin allow the use of R packages that use C or Fortran
code? So much of the value of R is locked in packages. It is kind of the same
issue as PyPy, only more so with R.

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batgaijin
why not use something like incanter?

~~~
michaelochurch
My exact thought. R has great tools but the language is wonky. That's not a
dig against them. It wasn't designed by language designers. However, its
interactive nature is _great_ for data scientists. So it seems like Clojure
(possibly Scala) is a better fit than Java.

~~~
Create
it isn't the R syntax, as a language, it is rather the package ecosystem and
the invested resources it encapsulates.

~~~
michaelochurch
I'm confused. Are you saying that the package ecosystem is what makes R
attractive, or that it's what makes it inscrutable?

~~~
cschmidt
I'm sure he's saying that package ecosystem is what makes R attractive.

