[Rd] New pipe operator

Gregory Warnes
2020-12-06T03:22:12Z

If we?re being mathematically pedantic, the ?pipe? operator is actually
function composition.

That being said, pipes are a simple and well-known idiom. While being less
than mathematically exact, it seems a reasonable   label for the (very
useful) behavior.

On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 9:43 PM Abby Spurdle <spurdle.a at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > This is a good addition
>
> I can't understand why so many people are calling this a
"pipe".
> Pipes connect processes, via their I/O streams.
> Arguably, a more general interpretation would include sockets and files.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(Unix)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named_pipe
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_pipe
>
> As far as I can tell, the magrittr-like operators are functions (not
> pipes), with nonstandard syntax.
> This is not consistent with R's original design philosophy, building
> on C, Lisp and S, along with lots of *important* math and stats.
>
> It's possible that some parties are interested in creating a kind of
> "data pipeline".
> I'm interested in this myself, and I think we could discuss this more.
> But I'm not convinced the magrittr-like operators help to achieve this
> goal.
> Which, in my opinion, would require one to model programs as directed
> graphs, along with some degree of asynchronous input.
>
> Presumably, these operators will be added to R anyway, and (almost) no
> one will listen to me.
>
> So, I would like to make one suggestion:
> Is it possible for these operators to *not* be named:
>     The R Pipe
>     The S Pipe
>     Or anything with a similar meaning.
>
> Maybe tidy pipe, or something else that links it to its proponents?
>
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