• Darren (unregistered)

    I've been coding on and off in a variety of languages for about 40 years. I've given myself a headache even trying to figure out the logic in that code. I can only assume that R was developed as one of those weird, oddball, novelty languages like Whitespace of BrainF*ck and someone didn't get the joke.

  • (nodebb)

    Remember: code is a liability and starts accruing cruft and tech-debt the instant it's released.

    This isn't true. It either is cruft and tech-debt right from the moment it's written, or it accumulates cruft and tech-debt as modifications (of code or of requirements) stomp through it in their big clompy boots later.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Darren

    Sadly, R looks like it's a pretty serious trhing (but not seriously pretty, as seen here). See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language).

    But the thing of using arrow (<-) for ordinary assignment wouldn't faze me at all, seeing as how I've worked with a programming language with the most self-referential name of any programming language that I've ever encountered. Um. A P(rogramming) L(anguage). That one uses a left-pointing arrow character for assignment.

  • Betsy (unregistered)

    Modern ILE RPG is a work of art compared to R. It's wild to think people actually program in R.

  • (nodebb)

    Indeed, arrow seems like the most logical assignment operator. Beginners often have problems with = because it doesn't express directionality. In math, it's a symmetric operation.

  • Gaetan (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.
  • (nodebb)

    Hi, I'm this Carl. A couple quick notes. The R language has both NA and NULL, and they do different things. The original reason for the "<-" operator is that a trillion years ago there were keyboard with a key that generated a "<-" symbol, and in fact R was not the first language to use that key as an assignment op. Finally, if you really want to hurt your head, download and read "The R-Inferno," which is an excellent book showing many of the twisted things one can do (or do wrong) in R. www.burns-stat.com/documents/books/the-r-inferno/

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