[Rd] anonymous functions

Gregory Warnes
2020-12-07T17:11:18Z

Thanks for expressing this eloquently. I heartily agree.

On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 12:04 PM Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D. via R-devel <
r-devel at r-project.org> wrote:

> ?The shorthand form \(x) x + 1 is parsed as function(x) x + 1. It may be
> helpful in making
> code containing simple function expressions more readable.?
>
> Color me unimpressed.
> Over the decades I've seen several "who can write the shortest
code"
> threads: in Fortran,
> in C, in Splus, ...   The same old idea that "short" is a synonym
for
> either elegant,
> readable, or efficient is now being recylced in the tidyverse.   The truth
> is that "short"
> is actually an antonym for all of these things, at least for anyone else
> reading the code;
> or for the original coder 30-60 minutes after the "clever" lines
were
> written.  Minimal
> use of the spacebar and/or the return key isn't usually held up as a
goal,
> but creeps into
> many practiioner's code as well.
>
> People are excited by replacing "function(" with "\("?
Really?   Are
> people typing code
> with their thumbs?
> I am ambivalent about pipes: I think it is a great concept, but too many
> of my colleagues
> think that using pipes = no need for any comments.
>
> As time goes on, I find my goal is to make my code less compact and more
> readable.  Every
> bug fix or new feature in the survival package now adds more lines of
> comments or other
> documentation than lines of code.  If I have to puzzle out what a line
> does, what about
> the poor sod who inherits the maintainance?
>
>
> --
> Terry M Therneau, PhD
> Department of Health Science Research
> Mayo Clinic
> therneau at mayo.edu
>
> "TERR-ree THUR-noh"
>
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>
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