Making R run Fast - Jan Vitek

Why HN readers recommended it

HN points to it as the best explanation of why R is so hard to optimize, often paired with talks on Python and used to explain what makes Julia fast.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

John O'Neill

Topic

language implementation and optimization

Format

talk

Level

advanced

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

4

Recommendation years in dataset

2017–2023

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Another talk on the difficulty of optimising R is this fantastic one by Jan Vitek: [VIDEO] Also, my favourite R trick: foo <- function() {rm(foo, envir=environment(foo))}

• Perhaps the best way to understand what makes Julia fast is to watch these two videos about Python and R and what makes them so hard to optimize: [LINK] [VIDEO] Take everything mentioned in these videos that make Python and R really hard to optimize …

• I recommend watching this video - Making R run fast [VIDEO] It's a little disappointing, because the conclusion is that R will probably never "run fast", but very interesting nonetheless.