From jmc at r-project.org  Mon Nov 22 18:25:29 2010
From: jmc at r-project.org (John Chambers)
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:25:29 -0800
Subject: [Rd] R5 reference classes: how to initialize exactly?
In-Reply-To: <871D8A34-EF70-4D85-939D-8F9B602B013A@stat.ubc.ca>
References: <005b01cb851d$16a21d60$43e65820$@thyson@ku-eichstaett.de>	<F69C1FF5-B769-4FAB-9807-7862001C4504@r-project.org>	<003001cb8643$bd85bb60$38913220$@thyson@ku-eichstaett.de>
	<871D8A34-EF70-4D85-939D-8F9B602B013A@stat.ubc.ca>
Message-ID: <4CEAA789.409@r-project.org>

As I posted previously in this same thread, reference classes are _not_ 
an addition to S4, but provide an interface to the "classical" OOP 
programming model in R, via environments and tools for those (and, also, 
via some S4 techniques).  The current version of the Rcpp package 
illustrates how they can be used in an interface, to C++.

There has been more than enough confusion already between the S and R 
version of OOP (which I'm calling "functional classes and methods" these 
days) and the C++/Java/... version.

Please just refer to "R reference classes" or words to that effect.

John

On 11/22/10 8:54 AM, Davor Cubranic wrote:
>>> Just a clarification for posterity - R5 has nothing to do with the new
>>> reference classes. It's not even an official name, but informally it's a
>>> collection of ideas for an entirely new object system that can replace
>>> both S3 and S4 (not that it will but it should be seen as having the
>>> capability to do so technically). Reference classes are just an addition
>>> to S4.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Simon
>>
>> Thanks for that clarification. I picked that name up from the Google
>> TechTalks presentation of Dirk and Romain. So I refer to them as S4
>> reference classes in future posts?
>>
>
> Or just R15S for brevity. :-)
>
> Davor
>
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[Rd] R5 reference classes: how to initialize exactly?
John Chambers