From: AlexG <alexg@...>
Date: 2006-03-30T10:23:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Calling R from Ruby

Timothy Goddard wrote:
> May I ask what this is for? I've had to learn R recently after working
> with Ruby for a while and find myself thinking constantly "This would
> be much simpler if I could only use Ruby!".

Like you, I spend most of my time in R wishing I could use Ruby.
However, whatever I'm doing, I always seem find a few R
functions/libraries that are really useful. I could rewrite the
functions in Ruby, but by then I'd have found some more functions that
I needed and so on. A universal .evalR function that I could call from
Ruby would make all that pain go away. The inbulit graphing is also
nice, though as Ara (and yourself) say, gnuplot could replace that
fairly easily.

For me specifically the ability to use some of the code/classes in the
Bioconductor project (http://www.bioconductor.org/) would really be
nice as well - though I don't know how practical that is.

> For most purposes, you could do better using Ruby with a good graphing
> system (such as gnuplot). There are, of course exceptions, but I would
> consider all options first.

Sound advice. I will have a look at trying to get a Ruby-R bridge
working, but perhaps moving everything to Ruby is the simpler option. I
will ponder on this further.

AlexG