Overview

R has risen to become the _lingua franca_ of statistical research and applications. At the same time, user demands on computing resources and performance have also increased. This is driven chiefly by the ever-growing size of datasets, and may sometimes be coupled with increases in their complexity. The quest for computing with larger datasets, as well as the ever-present desire to also compute "faster" make complementing the interpreted language-processing at the core of R with native code extensions a natural next step.

Over the dozen+ years since its initial release, the Rcpp package has become the most-widely used language extension for the R system.  By our calculations, almost a quarter (23.5%) of CRAN packages use compiled code. And well over half (56.2%) of these deploy Rcpp---a total of 2502 packages making it the most-widely-used language extension.

This talk aims to gently introduce going to _compiled code_ without fear thanks to sophisticated tooling which makes otherwise complicated and sometimes feared steps of compiling, linking, loading and launching compiled code a relative breeze that is accessible directly from R---by leveraging the excellent and robust build toolchain supplied by R. It also highlights key aspects, and motivations, of using Rcpp---and will also warn of a few common pitfalls.  Pointers for further study as well as to additional examples offer an opportunity for self-study following this introductory talk.

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Pricing Information:

NISS Affiliates --- Free!  Please refer to the List of NISS Affiliates page to see if your institution is eligible. 

Students at other institutions --- $10

General Admission --- $20