Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Mutable objects in R

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Computational Statistics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Programming paradigms help us understand the differences and similarities between fundamental choices in language design. This paper looks at R in the context of three paradigms of object oriented programming: mutable versus immutable objects, generic-function versus message-passing methods, and class-based versus prototype-based inheritance. The paper also describes a new OO package for R, mutatr, which provides mutable objects with message-passing methods and prototype-based inheritance. The mutatr package is available on CRAN.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agesen O, Bak L, Chambers C, Chang B-W, Hölzle U, Maloney J, Smith RB, Ungar D, Wolczko M (2000) The SELF 4.1 programmer’s reference manual. Sun Microsystems, Inc

  • Bates D, Maechler M (2009) Matrix: sparse and dense matrix classes and methods, R package version 0.999375-29

  • Bengtsson H (2003) The R.oo package—object-oriented programming with references using standard R code. In: Hornik K, Leisch F, Zeileis A (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on distributed statistical computing (DSC 2003), Vienna, Austria, March 2003

  • Chambers C (1992) Object-oriented multi-methods in cecil. In: ECOOP’92 conference proceedings

  • Chambers JM, Temple Lang D (2001) Object-oriented programming in r. R-news 1(3): 17–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Courtney A, Elliott C (2001) Genuinely functional user interfaces. In: 2001 Haskell workshop, September 2001

  • Danenberg P, Eugster M (2008) Roxygen: literate programming in R. http://roxygen.org. R package version 0.1

  • Dekorte S (2005) Io, a small programming language. In: OOPSLA05

  • DeMichiel LG, Gabriel RP (1987) The common lisp object system: an overview. In: ECOOP’ 87 European conference on object-oriented programming. Springer, Berlin. http://www.dreamsongs.com/NewFiles/ECOOP.pdf

  • Driscoll JR, Sarnak N, Sleator DD, Tarjan RE (1986) Making data structures persistent. In: STOC ’86: proceedings of the eighteenth annual ACM symposium on theory of computing. ACM, New York, pp 109–121. ISBN 0-89791-193-8

  • Elliott C, Hudak P (1997) Functional reactive animation. In: International conference on functional programming

  • Feinberg N, Keene SE, Mathews RO, Withington PT (1997) Dylan programming: an object-oriented and dynamic language. Addison Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Redwood City. ISBN 0-201-47976-1.

  • Gentleman R, Ihaka R (2000) Lexical scope and statistical computing. J Comput Graph Stat 9: 491–508

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Hickey R (2008) The clojure programming language. In: Proceedings of the 2008 symposium on dynamic languages. ACM. New York

  • Hofstadter D (1979) Gödel, escher, bach: an eternal golden braid. Basic Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihaka R, Gentleman R (1996) R: a language for data analysis and graphics. J Comput Graph Stat 5(3): 299–314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan H (1995) Persistent data structures. In: Handbook on data structures and applications. CRC Press, Boca Raton

  • Kates L, Petzoldt T (2007) Proto: prototype object-based programming, R package version 0.3-8

  • Okasaki C (1999) Purely functional data structures. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Rice B, Salzman L (2004) The slate programmer’s reference manual

  • Salzman L, Aldrich J (2005) Prototypes with multiple dispatch: an expressive and dynamic object model. In: European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. Springer, Berlin, pp 312–336

  • Smith RB, Ungar D (1995) Programming as an experience: the inspiration for self. In: European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. Springer, Berlin, pp 303–330

  • Smith WR (1995) Using a prototype-based language for user interface: the newton project’s experience. In: OOPSLA

  • Tierney L (1990) Lisp-stat: an object-oriented environment for statistical computing and dynamic graphics. Wiley, New York

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Ungar D, Chambers C, Chang B-W, Hölzle U (1991) Organizing programs without classes. Lisp Symb Comput 4(3): 223–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ungar D, Smith RB (1987) Self: the power of simplicity. Lisp Symb Comput 22(12): 227–241

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Roy P (2009) Programming paradigms for dummies: what every programmer should know. In: Assayag G, Gerzso A (eds) New Computational Paradigms for Computer Music. http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/VanRoyChapter.pdf

  • Van Roy P, Haridi S (2004) Concepts, techniques and models of computer programming. The MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Verzani J (2007) gwidgets: a toolkit-independent api for building guis in r. In: useR! 2007. http://wiener.math.csi.cuny.edu/pmg/gWidgets/useR2007_presentation.pdf

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Hadley Wickham

Authors
  1. Hadley Wickham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hadley Wickham.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Wickham, H. Mutable objects in R. Comput Stat 26, 405–418 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00180-011-0235-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00180-011-0235-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation