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shinyelectron hex logo

shinyelectron v0.2.1 Released - Now on CRAN

software-releases
r-package

shinyelectron is on CRAN. install.packages() now gets you the toolkit that exports an R or Python Shiny app as a standalone desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Version 0.2.1 is v0.2.0 plus the changes CRAN review asked for.

Aug 8, 2026

paintr hex logo: a three-by-six matrix of numbers, a fluorescent pink highlight printed over row 2 and column 6, and the wordmark paintr set as row 2, one letter to a cell

paintr v0.0.1 Released - Draw R Data Structures So You Can See Their Shape and Index Them

software-releases
r-package

paintr draws teaching pictures of R data structures (vectors, matrices, data frames, lists, and arrays) and writes the accessor you would type on every cell, so the drawing and the code are the same object. Two backends, base graphics and ggplot2, draw the identical picture.

Aug 6, 2026

livelink hex logo: a stack of code lines receding into the distance with an outbound arrow

livelink v0.1.1 Released - Braced Expressions in Positron, Safer Decoding, and webR’s Link Format

software-releases
r-package

livelink 0.1.1 fixes braced expressions run from Positron’s editor panel, stops a decoded link from writing outside the directory you named, and writes webR links as msgpack, the form webR’s own share button uses. Links you have already shared keep working.

Aug 1, 2026

paintr hex logo: a matrix of values whose second row spells 'paintr', one letter per cell, with a fluorescent pink highlight rolled over that row and the last column

You Can’t Index What You Can’t Picture

r
r-package
paintr
teaching
data-structures
visualization
ggplot2

When you teach R, the arithmetic is rarely the hard part. The hard part is helping someone see the shape of the thing in front of them: that a vector is a row of boxes, that a data frame is a stack of columns that happen to line up, that an array is a pile of matrices. paintr draws exactly those pictures, and labels each cell with the code that reaches it, so the drawing and the accessor become the same object. It paints in base graphics with paint_*() and returns real ggplot objects with gpaint_*(), and it is on CRAN. This is the idea behind it.

Jul 20, 2026
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.3.11.0.1 Released - New DeltaBarDelta and MomentumDeltaBarDelta Optimizers

software-releases
r-package

Bundles ensmallen 3.11.0 ‘Sunny Day’, which refactors GradientDescent into a policy-based template and adds the DeltaBarDelta and MomentumDeltaBarDelta optimizers.

Jul 18, 2026
 

Keeping Bundled C++ Headers Within CRAN’s 100-Byte Path Limit

github-actions
cran
r
r-package
c++
ensmallen

ensmallen 3.11.0 added a header whose packaged path ran to 109 bytes, past the 100-byte ceiling R CMD check enforces on tarball paths. Why a one-off rename regresses on the next sync, and the shortening step that holds.

Jul 18, 2026

livelink hex logo: a stack of code lines receding into the distance with an outbound arrow

Data Science as a Reproducible Link

r
r-package
webr
shinylive
quarto
webassembly
CRAN

livelink turns an R project, or an R or Python Shiny app, into a reproducible link, a single URL that runs in the browser with no compute server behind it and reads back into the original files

Jul 16, 2026

livelink hex logo: a stack of code lines receding into the distance with an outbound arrow

livelink v0.1.0 Released - Shareable Links That Run R and Shiny in the Browser

software-releases
r-package

livelink turns R code into a URL that runs in the browser, with no server and nothing to upload. It covers webR for a full R REPL and Shinylive for R and Python Shiny apps, packs the code into the link itself, and reads any link back into files.

Jul 15, 2026

The Beginnings of the R Observatory

r
cran
bioconductor
data
tools

One place to watch the whole R package ecosystem, CRAN and Bioconductor, measured and remembered over time.

Jul 12, 2026

checktor hex logo: a stethoscope whose chestpiece is a green check mark

The Check Passed. The Reviewer Didn’t.

r
r-package
checktor
CRAN
package-development
code-quality

A clean automated check is not a clean submission. My own package sailed through R CMD check, then a human CRAN reviewer sent back six fixes by hand. checktor catches that list before you hit submit.

Jul 5, 2026

peeky hex logo: cartoon eyes peek over an app whose corner peels back to reveal source code

peeky v0.1.0 Released

software-releases
r-package

peeky downloads and extracts the source code behind published Shinylive applications, whether standalone or Quarto-embedded, in R or Python. A reminder that browser-based Shiny apps keep no secrets.

Jul 2, 2026

peeky hex logo: cartoon eyes peek over an app whose corner peels back to reveal source code

There Are No Secrets in Shinylive

r
r-package
shinylive
shiny
quarto
webassembly
CRAN

How a browser-based Shiny app hands over its source, and how peeky walks the pipeline backward to hand it back

Jul 2, 2026

shinyelectron hex logo

shinyelectron v0.2.0 Released - Python Apps, Five Runtime Strategies, and Multi-App Suites

software-releases
r-package

shinyelectron v0.2.0 grows from an R shinylive exporter into a general Shiny-to-desktop toolkit, adding Python apps, five runtime strategies, multi-app suites, and code signing.

Jul 1, 2026

shinyelectron hex logo

Reintroducing shinyelectron

r
python
shiny
electron
desktop
webassembly

From an R shinylive exporter to a full Shiny-to-desktop toolkit for R and Python.

Jul 1, 2026

shinyelectron hex logo

Build Shiny Desktop Apps in CI with shiny-to-electron

github-actions
ci-cd
r
python
shiny
electron

One matrix workflow builds a signed .dmg, .exe, and .AppImage in parallel and hands them back as artifacts.

Jul 1, 2026

pycmdcheck logo

pycmdcheck v0.1.1 Released - R CMD check for Python Packages

software-releases
python-package

pycmdcheck runs a battery of static quality checks over a Python package - metadata, structure, license, documentation, versioning, CI, and more - in a single command. It is built to inspect packages you have not installed, which makes it a good fit for triaging arbitrary repositories in CI.

Jun 26, 2026
 

R&D Rcpp: A Collection of Minimal Examples for Compiled Code in R

programming
cpp
r
rcpp

Tiny, buildable R packages that each demonstrate exactly one way to integrate C, C++, Fortran, or a parallel backend with R

Jun 25, 2026
 

Calling an Rcpp Function with a mirai Backend

programming
cpp

Distributing a packaged Rcpp kernel across mirai daemons

Jun 25, 2026
 

Using OpenMP with cpp11

programming
cpp

Parallelizing a C++ routine with OpenMP inside a cpp11 function

Jun 25, 2026
 

Using OpenMP with Rcpp

programming
cpp

Parallelizing a C++ routine with OpenMP directly inside Rcpp

Jun 25, 2026

checktor hex logo: a stethoscope whose chestpiece is a green check mark

checktor v0.1.0 Released - A Package Doctor for CRAN Submission Checks

software-releases
r-package

checktor runs extra-CRAN diagnostic checks on R packages. It catches the T/F literals, hardcoded seeds, DESCRIPTION formatting, missing tags, and policy snags that R CMD check leaves for a human reviewer to find.

Jun 24, 2026
 

macrtools v0.0.7 Released - R 4.6 Support and OpenMP Runtime Update

software-releases
r

macrtools v0.0.7 adds support for R 4.6.0 on macOS and updates the bundled LLVM OpenMP runtime to 19.1.5.

Jun 23, 2026

Animated ompsh hex logo: a single white thread forks into four colored parallel threads that bow into a spindle and rejoin, evoking OpenMP's fork–join model, for OpenMP on macOS.

OpenMP for macOS - Upstream Sync, OpenMP 19.1.5, and Correctness CI

software-releases
r

Automated upstream version sync, an OpenMP 19.1.5 runtime bump, and a macOS CI test that verifies real multithreaded OpenMP correctness in C and R.

Jun 23, 2026
 

Python Cheatsheets, One Diagram Per Command

python
cheatsheet
reference

Every command sits next to a picture of what it does.

May 17, 2026

iPhone home screen of U.S. Citizenship Test Prep showing entry tiles for Study, Civics, Reading, Writing, Interview, and Progress.

Preparing for the U.S. Citizenship Test on iPhone and iPad

ios
citizenship
education

U.S. Citizenship Test Prep is a free iOS app that helps you prepare for the USCIS naturalization test. It covers all three parts of the test (civics, reading, writing) with practice modes that include realistic interview simulation using on-device speech recognition. The app supports both the 2008 and 2025 test versions, study materials in 12+ languages, and works entirely offline. Available now on the App Store.

May 13, 2026

Bringing arf, a modern R console, to Homebrew

r
homebrew
arf
rust

A community-requested R console, now one brew command away on macOS and Linux

May 12, 2026

A CSS Paint Job for CRAN

r
cran
css
web-design

Modernizing cran.r-project.org with a drop-in stylesheet, no HTML changes, plus a side-by-side viewer for evaluating the result.

May 11, 2026
 

Closing the Footnote Loop

open source
rstats
posit

A follow-up on portable R, attribution, and what came after

May 10, 2026
Screenshot of a GitHub pull request adding portable, relocatable macOS and Windows R builds to a Posit-maintained repository, showing a Files changed table that includes a CLAUDE.md and an Existing art for reference section linking to two external repositories.

Extraction with a Footnote

open source
rstats
ai
posit

On being sniped by an LLM pointed at my open source work

May 3, 2026

iPhone screenshot showing the Pyodios Python console with a prompt, an expression, and its result.

Python in Your Pocket

python
webassembly
ios
pyodide

Python REPL, editor, packages, and Jupyter notebooks on iPhone and iPad.

May 1, 2026

Flow diagram showing RTOOLS45_HOME at the top flowing into three R components: Makeconf for compiler flags, Rcmd_environ for R CMD PATH, and Rprofile.windows for interactive PATH. All three converge into package compilation working.

Portable R for Windows + Rtools

r
open-source
windows

Source package compilation on Windows, no installer required.

Apr 7, 2026

Timeline showing milestones: 2009 R-devel PR#14007, 2013 Simon Urbanek maps baked-in paths, 2017 COVAIL ships R 3.4 in Electron, 2019 Posit Community surveys the state of the art, 2023 selkamand publishes R 4.2.3 portable, 2026 portable-r-macos launches with R 4.3 through 4.5 signed and notarized.

Portable R for macOS

r
macos
devops
portable

Run R from any directory without installing it. Signed, notarized, and ready to go.

Apr 2, 2026

Two rows contrasting traditional and portable R installation. The traditional row shows six steps: download exe, run installer, click wizard, admin prompt, registry writes, restart IDE. The portable row shows two steps: curl download and extract, then run Rscript.exe.

Portable R for Windows

r
windows
devops
portable

R without the installer. Extract a zip, run Rscript.exe, install packages.

Apr 1, 2026
 

Quarto Cheatsheets

quarto
cheatsheet
reference

Quarto’s markup and what it renders to, side by side.

Mar 29, 2026

Architecture diagram showing the macOS host with a staging directory connected to a Windows 11 VM through the Parallels shared folder bridge. The macOS filesystem is exposed via the UNC path backslash-backslash-Mac-backslash-Home on the Windows side.

Testing macOS Builds in a Windows VM with Parallels

macos
windows
parallels
testing
cross-platform

Using shared folders to move binaries, license files, and test artifacts between macOS and a Windows ARM64 VM.

Mar 23, 2026

Diagram showing the data pipeline from pipermail archives through per-list repositories to the aggregated data repository, with outputs to the web archive and R/Python analysis workflows.

Preserving 29 Years of R Community Knowledge

r
data
open-source
community

A searchable archive and analysis-ready dataset of 631,000+ messages from 32 R mailing lists.

Mar 20, 2026
 

Merge PDFs from the Command Line

terminal
pdf
ghostscript

No GUI, no uploads, no problem. Just Ghostscript and a one-liner.

Mar 19, 2026

Android phone screenshot showing the webRoid R console with syntax-colored output.

R in Your Pocket on Android

r
webassembly
android
webr

webRoid brings R to phones and tablets with WebAssembly.

Mar 16, 2026
 

S7 Replacement Methods and the R CMD Check Crash

r
s7
packages

Your code is fine. R CMD check just can’t handle S7 replacement ops yet.

Feb 8, 2026

iPhone screenshot showing the webRios R console with syntax-colored output.

R in Your Pocket

r
webassembly
ios
webr

Bringing R to iPhone and iPad with WebAssembly.

Jan 23, 2026

iPhone Simulator screenshot showing a minimal test app running native R with output from 1+1, sum(1:100), c(1,2,3,4,5), and mean(1:10).

Compiling R for iOS

r
ios
cross-compilation

Cross-compiling R 4.5.2 for iPhone, and why dynamic symbol loading is the real problem.

Jan 17, 2026

Decision flowchart showing the vignettes target checking for the existence of vignettes/precompile.R and branching to either precompilation or standard vignette building.

A Makefile for R Package Development

r
packages
make
tooling

Standardize your workflow with make targets for documentation, testing, and more.

Jan 15, 2026

The Case of the Missing Vignettes: A Dot-ful Tale

R
packages
CI/CD
vignettes

Using R CMD INSTALL --build . instead of a .tar.gz tarball quietly skips vignette rendering. Learn why the dot matters, how the R package build pipeline works, and the two-step fix for your GitHub Actions workflow.

Dec 26, 2025
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.22.1.2 Released - Upstream Armadillo Changes

software-releases
r-package

Adds -DARMA_USE_CURRENT to PKG_CXXFLAGS so the package builds against Armadillo 15.0.2 and later, and flags R 4.3.0 or higher for the newer default C++ standard.

Sep 10, 2025

shinyelectron hex logo

shinyelectron v0.1.0 Released - Shiny Apps as Standalone Desktop Applications

software-releases
r-package

shinyelectron exports an R Shiny app as a standalone Electron desktop application, compiling it to WebAssembly with WebR and shinylive so it runs offline with no R installed on the recipient’s machine.

Sep 4, 2025

Animated ompsh hex logo: a single white thread forks into four colored parallel threads that bow into a spindle and rejoin, evoking OpenMP's fork–join model, for OpenMP on macOS.

Lightweight Alternative to Setup, Run Diagnostics, and Uninstall OpenMP on macOS using Apple’s Xcode Toolchain

r
macos
openmp

A shell-based approach to OpenMP installation, diagnostics, and uninstall on macOS.

Aug 26, 2025

Stop Bloating Your Quarto Repository with Generated Figure Files

quarto
git
git-submodules
github-actions
version-control

Learn how to use git submodules to store Quarto-generated figures in a separate repository, keeping your main website repository lightweight while maintaining version control over all assets.

Aug 20, 2025
 

OpenMP Support Comes to {macrtools}

r
macos
openmp
hpc
parallel computing

macrtools gains five openmp_*() functions that detect the Xcode version, download a compatible OpenMP runtime, and configure Makevars, following the CRAN Mac maintainer’s recommendations so packages like ranger, xgboost, and data.table can use parallelism on macOS.

Aug 9, 2025

Bringing Posit’s Air formatter for R to Homebrew

r
homebrew
posit
air
rust

Step by step guide to creating a Homebrew formula for a Rust project

Jul 2, 2025

Screenshot of Typst's ASCII table tool showing the full character grid. The dollar sign ($) is highlighted with a blue border in the table, displaying its hex code 0x24 and decimal value 36. The table shows various ASCII characters organized in rows, including control characters (NUL, SOH, STX, etc.) and printable characters (letters, numbers, and symbols like !,

Hexadecimal Escape Sequences in Typst Templates for Quarto Documents

A Guide to Including Special Characters Like Dollar Signs in Typst Templates

Jun 19, 2025
 

Using R to Install Python Packages in a GitHub Actions Workflow

programming
r
python
github-actions

A GitHub Actions workflow that worked in February 2025 broke once reticulate 1.41 introduced py_require(). What changed, and how to install Python packages from R in CI now.

May 28, 2025

shinyelectron hex logo

Shiny Apps as Desktop Apps

r
shiny
electron
webassembly
desktop

Turn an R Shiny app into an offline desktop application with Electron and shinylive, no server and no R install required.

May 19, 2025

uiucthemes v0.3.3 Released - Maintenance for CRAN

software-releases
r

The first CRAN release in roughly four years, handling changed URLs and CRAN feedback on inherited documentation so the package stays listed.

Apr 27, 2025
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the current R 4.5.z series, either through the automatic installer or by hand, with pointers to the historical posts covering older R lines.

Apr 24, 2025

Shiny without Boundaries

talk
r
shiny
devops
webassembly
wasm
shinylive

A guest lecture for STAT 447 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on deploying one Shiny app to several destinations.

Apr 19, 2025

Rethinking Shiny Containerization: The shinydocker Experiment

r
python
docker
shiny
containers

An experimental R package for containerizing Shiny apps with minimal fuss

Apr 3, 2025
 

Simplifying File-based Examples with @examplesTempdir in R Packages

r
r-package
roxygen2
CRAN

A roxygen2 extension for automating temporary directory handling in examples

Apr 2, 2025

Introducing dockitect: Making Docker Feel More Native to R

dockitect builds and manages Dockerfiles from R with a pipe-friendly API, on top of the Rocker Project’s container ecosystem, so containerization stops feeling bolted onto an R workflow.

Mar 30, 2025

Introducing multideploy: Streamline file deployments across multiple repositories

r
github
devops

multideploy pushes a shared file, a CI workflow, a license, a style config, across dozens of GitHub repositories at once, instead of updating each one by hand.

Mar 21, 2025
 

From Experiment to Action: R Package CRAN Submission GitHub Action

r
github-actions
cran
automation

A follow-up to our experimental CRAN submission workflow

Mar 16, 2025
 

Julia Comes to Google Colab

julia
google
colaboratory
data-science

Native Julia Support with GPU and TPU Access Now Available

Mar 9, 2025
 

First Steps toward Automating CRAN Submissions with GitHub Actions

r
github-actions
cran
r&d
automation

Making CRAN submissions more like PyPI publishing

Mar 3, 2025
 

Automating Library Updates with GitHub Actions

github
github-actions
r
r-package
c++
gitlab
automation
bandicoot

Tracking releases of the Bandicoot library on GitLab and updating the bundled header files in an R package on GitHub, automatically, with GitHub Actions.

Feb 26, 2025
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.22.1.1 Released - Maintenance and CMA-ES Restart Mechanisms

software-releases
r-package

Bundles ensmallen 2.22.0 and 2.22.1 ‘E-Bike Excitement’, adding IPOP and BIPOP restart mechanisms to CMA-ES, moving to the C++14 standard, and raising the minimum Armadillo version to 10.8.

Dec 3, 2024
 

Posit’s New Brand YML Specification for Themes Makes Its Debut!

shiny-python
design-systems
web

Shiny for Python leads the way with the first implementation of this powerful brand system

Nov 10, 2024
 

Next Generation Data Science Education with WebAssembly Technologies

education
python
webassembly
quarto

Creating interactive, explorable data science education materials using WebAssembly

Nov 5, 2024
 

Handling CRAN Requirements for Web API R Packages

programming
r

CRAN’s policy on internet access can fail a package that talks to a web API, at submission or long afterward. How to write examples that survive the checks, in both the modern and the legacy style.

Nov 2, 2024
 

Scraping Dynamic Websites with R and Chromote

video
r

A student asked how to scrape weather data off Windy.com, which only renders under JavaScript. A video walkthrough of both static and dynamic scraping in R with Chromote.

Oct 29, 2024
 

Introducing Quartize: Streamline Your Quarto Blog Workflow in VS Code

vsx
vs-code
positron-ide

quartize is a Visual Studio Code extension for creating and organizing Quarto blog posts, built after migrating this blog through Hugo and Jekyll and landing on Quarto.

Oct 27, 2024
 

HTML Table to DataFrame Converter

tools
data-science
web-development

A web-based, language-agnostic tool that turns a table copied from any web page into code that loads the same data into R, Python, or Julia.

Oct 22, 2024
 

Converting FontAwesome CSS to Lua with R: A Unicode Adventure

quarto
lua
r

Converting FontAwesome’s CSS definitions into a Lua table that maps icon class names onto Unicode escape sequences, with R and stringr doing the parsing.

Oct 19, 2024
 

Shiny Assistant: A Game-Changer for Shiny Development

shinylive
shiny
r
python

A look at Posit’s Shiny Assistant: how it splits into two pieces built on existing open source rather than another proprietary platform, and where its limits currently sit.

Oct 10, 2024
 

Creating Desktop Shortcuts for Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud on macOS using symlinks

mac
cloud
storage
symlink
terminal

Finder gives you no way to put a cloud storage folder on the desktop with its own icon, so this walks through symlinking Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud instead.

Oct 8, 2024
 

surreal v0.0.1 Released

software-releases
r-package

First release of surreal, which hides a secret message or image inside a data set so that it only appears when you plot the residuals of a linear model.

Sep 12, 2024
 

ucimlrepo v0.0.2 Released - Graceful Speedy Data

software-releases
r-package

Improves error handling in fetch_ucirepo() and list_available_datasets(), speeds up fetching large data frames by moving to base R, and fixes an internal subset issue with returned metadata.

Sep 2, 2024
 

ucimlrepo v0.0.1 Released

software-releases
r-package

First release of ucimlrepo, with fetch_ucirepo() to pull a dataset from the UCI Machine Learning Repository straight into R and list_available_datasets() to see what is on offer.

Jul 27, 2024
 

quarto-webr v0.4.2 Released - A Change Is Gonna Come!

software-releases
quarto
webr

Released for UseR! 2024. Adds a menu for downloading the R command history, light and dark theme switching in the Monaco editor, webR v0.3.3, and a batch of new editor options at both document and cell level.

Jun 24, 2024
 

Dynamic Interactions with WebAssembly in R and Python

webassembly
r
webr
python
pyodide
quarto
talks

Guest lectures for Stanford’s STATS 352 on running R and Python inside the browser through WebAssembly, by way of WebR and Pyodide.

May 16, 2024
 

quarto-webr v0.4.1 Released - Vivid Montage!

software-releases
quarto
webr

Upgrades the embedded webR to v0.3.1, after a brief detour to release the quarto-pyodide extension.

Mar 25, 2024
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.21.1.1 Released - Numerical Fix for L-BFGS!

software-releases
r-package

Bundles ensmallen 2.21.1 ‘Bent Antenna’, which fixes numerical precision in the small-gradient L-BFGS scaling factor computation.

Feb 17, 2024
 

quarto-webr v0.4.0 Released - Ball of Yarn!

software-releases
quarto
webr

An entirely new internal backend that improves reliability and gives clearer visual cues for non-interactive code cells. Contains breaking changes.

Feb 5, 2024
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.21.0.1 Released - Callback tweaks!

software-releases
r-package

Bundles ensmallen 2.21.0 ‘Stripped Bolt Head’, clarifying callback return values and types and tidying the optimization report printed by Report().

Nov 28, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.9 Released - Zoom-Zoom!

software-releases
quarto
webr

Drops the requirement to ship webr-worker.js and webr-serviceworker.js next to the rendered document. Contains breaking changes.

Nov 16, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.8 Released - New Coat of Paint!

software-releases
quarto
webr

Adds an autoload-packages document option that loads the R packages a document needs without an explicit library() call, plus a round of user experience improvements.

Nov 13, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.7 Released - Mutex On, Mutex Off!

software-releases
quarto
webr

Adds a lock so only one webR code cell runs at a time, alongside bug fixes and documentation updates.

Oct 16, 2023
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.20.0.1 Released - New Active CMAES Implementation and Fixes!

software-releases
r-package

Bundles ensmallen 2.20.0, adding an Active CMA-ES implementation, guarding L-BFGS against generating NaNs, and renaming the SCD optimizer to CD.

Oct 3, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.6 Released - Ready, Set, Run!

software-releases
quarto
webr

Community-driven fixes after Posit::conf(2023): the run shortcut now runs the current line and advances, spaces are preserved in output, and webR initializes on documents that have no title.

Sep 24, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.5 Released - Seance of Communication Channels

software-releases
quarto
webr

Adds the channel-type document option for choosing how the page talks to webR, across shared array buffer, service worker, and post message, plus a context cell option and a new documentation website.

Sep 17, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.2 Released - Rocking the Monaco!

software-releases
quarto
webr

An internal maintenance release that fixes behavior under Safari and moves the codebase onto the latest MonacoEditor.

Sep 13, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.1 Released - Maintenance Release: Upgrade to webR v0.2.1!

software-releases
quarto
webr

A maintenance release that upgrades the bundled webR to v0.2.1.

Sep 12, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.3.0 Released - Across the webR-Verse to v0.2.0!

software-releases
r

Incorporates the upstream webR v0.2.0 release, which changed enough of the underlying framework to warrant an update of its own.

Aug 17, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.2.1 Released - Demo, Demo, Demo!

software-releases
r

Focuses on the development experience, adding a GitHub Actions workflow that deploys a demo site so the extension is easier to try out and to contribute to.

Aug 17, 2023
 

slcm v0.1.0 Released

software-releases
r

First release of slcm, implementing the exploratory Sparse Latent Class Model for binary data described by Chen, Culpepper, and Liang.

Aug 12, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.2.0 Released - Accessibility

software-releases
r

Swaps CodeMirror for the Monaco editor to improve the accessibility of the interactive code cells. Contains breaking changes.

May 1, 2023
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before R 4.5.0

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 4.3.0 through 4.4.3 series, by installer or by hand. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

Apr 21, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.1.0 Released - Options Galore

software-releases
r

Adds document-level options, so webR behavior can be configured once in the YAML header instead of being repeated on every code cell.

Apr 11, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.0.4 Released - Custom Code Cell Name

software-releases
quarto
webr

Moves from the original {webr} code cell designation to {webr-r}, which allows evaluation before the document renders and needs no registration under the knitr compute engine. A breaking change.

Mar 30, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.0.3 Released - Escape Escape

software-releases
quarto
webr

Fixes character escaping in webR code cells, where certain sequences were not reaching the interpreter intact, along with documentation corrections.

Mar 19, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.0.2 Released - Plot and Service Worker Fixes

software-releases
quarto
webr

An immediate follow-up to the first release, clearing the ‘figure margins too large’ error caused by canvas sizing and simplifying path handling when COOP and COEP headers are absent.

Mar 12, 2023
 

quarto-webr v0.0.1 Released - Democratizing Data Science

software-releases
quarto
webr

The first quarto-webr release extends Quarto with webR, so R code cells run in the reader’s browser with no server and no local R installation.

Mar 12, 2023
 

macrtools - v0.0.1 Released: Automatic macOS R Compiled Toolchain Installation from within R

software-releases
r
The macrtools (Website) package lowers the barrier of entry for R developers who work on macOS that want to incorporate compiled code on macOS. The package provides an…
Mar 7, 2023
 

Disable Cisco Anyconnect Notice on macOS

programming
macos

Silencing the startup notice from the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client on macOS, and how to put it back when you need it.

Jan 10, 2023
 

bibtex v0.5.0 Released

software-releases
r

The bibtex package returns to CRAN after being orphaned over memory leaks in its C parser, revived by Diego Hernangomez rewriting the parsing logic entirely in R.

Sep 25, 2022
 

Italy and a trek with COVID-19

real-life

A trip to Bologna for the 2022 International Meeting of the Psychometric Society, and the case of COVID-19 that came home with me despite the N95.

Jul 25, 2022
 

Married

real-life

We got married, with a small family ceremony under COVID-19 restrictions and a considerable Zoom audience.

May 11, 2022
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before R 4.3.0

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 4.2.0 through 4.2.3 series, by installer or by hand. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

Apr 22, 2022
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.19.0.1 Released - New Optimizers Yogi, DemonSGD, DemonAdam, AdaBelief, and AdaSqrt!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.19.0 ‘Eight Ball Deluxe’, adding the Yogi, DemonSGD, DemonAdam, AdaBelief, and AdaSqrt optimizers and fixing a reset bug in the Adam-like optimizers.

Apr 11, 2022
 

Microsoft 365, Two Factor Authentication, and Sending an Email from R

programming
r

Sending student announcements from R through a Microsoft 365 account with two-factor authentication enabled, and why the usual R email packages fall over on it.

Feb 25, 2022
 

ohoegdm v0.1.0 Released: Ordinal Higher-Order Exploratory General Diagnostic Model for Polytomous Data

software-releases
r

First release of ohoegdm, enabling estimation of the Ordinal Higher-order Exploratory General Diagnostic Model for polytomous data.

Feb 24, 2022
 

cIRT v1.3.2 Released: Maintenance Release

software-releases
r

The first update in nearly two years: corrects the person() call to use ‘given’ rather than ‘middle’, and raises the floor to R 4.0.0, Rcpp 1.0.8, and RcppArmadillo 10.8.1.

Feb 21, 2022
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.18.2.1 Released - Fix Epoch Timing

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.18.2, correcting the epoch timing output and refreshing the package URLs.

Feb 18, 2022
 

Template for Auto-Deploying Quarto-Book on GitHub with GitHub Pages

programming

A repository template that renders a Quarto book and publishes it to GitHub Pages on every push, so the deployed book stays current without a manual render and upload step.

Feb 3, 2022

Our Lovely, Lovely Car Ride

real-life

A remembrance for the aunt who taught me that we were never lost, only on a lovely, lovely car ride to our destination.

Jan 24, 2022
 

Book Recommendations

academia

A running list of textbooks I have enjoyed over the years, covering deep learning, Python and R data science, and high performance computing, with the freely available titles marked.

Dec 31, 2021
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.18.1.1 Released - CMAES Infinity Loop Fix and Testing Improvements!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.18.1, closing a potential infinite loop in CMAES and cutting the runtime of the SGD tests.

Nov 20, 2021
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.18.0.1 Released - Gradient Stability Techniques and Bugfixes!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.18.0 ‘Fairmount Bagel’, adding gradient value clipping and gradient norm scaling callbacks and raising the minimum Armadillo version to 9.800.

Oct 22, 2021
 

sitmo v2.0.2 Released - Bag of Bugfixes and Modernizations

software-releases
r

The first release in two years: fixes unbalanced chunk delimiters in a vignette, adapts to the new stream handling in Rcpp 1.0.7, and moves continuous integration to GitHub Actions.

Oct 13, 2021

uiucthemes v0.3.2 Released - Maintenance and a pkgdown website (GitHub-only)

software-releases
r

A GitHub-only maintenance release that fixes the README image paths, adds a pkgdown website, and pins the GitHub Actions runners to tag references.

Aug 19, 2021
 

edmdata v1.2.0 Released: New Oracle Strategy Sets and Probability Assessment Data

software-releases
r

Adds the Elementary Probability Theory Assessment item responses and expert-derived Q matrix from Chen et al. (2021), plus oracle strategy sets for multiple-strategies simulation studies.

Jul 24, 2021
 

searcher v0.0.6 Released - Search Ecosia and Rseek!

software-releases
r

Adds the Ecosia and Rseek portals by request, and repairs search engine URLs that had begun failing CRAN checks.

Jul 24, 2021
 

A Professor Is Born

real-life

The dissertation is finished and the exams are over. The Coatless Professor becomes an actuality.

Jul 8, 2021
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.17.0.1 Released - Support for Multiobjective Optimizers!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.17.0, which brings multi-objective optimization support: the MOEA-D/DE optimizer, quality indicators, the ZDT test suite, and MOO-aware callbacks.

Jul 6, 2021
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before R 4.2.0

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 4.1.0 through 4.1.3 series, by installer or by hand. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

May 18, 2021
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.16.1.1 Released - Better Unit Tests and Bug Fixes!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.16.1, refactoring the tests for stability, fixing CNE initial population generation to draw from a normal distribution, and resolving an OpenMP compilation issue.

Mar 5, 2021
 

edmdata v1.1.0 Released: New Low Attribute Oracle Q and Documentation Fixes

software-releases
r

Adds the qmatrix_oracle_k2_j12 oracle Q matrix, fixes the K = 5 attribute in qmatrix_oracle_k5_j30, and switches DOI links to the doi macro for CRAN.

Jan 14, 2021
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.15.0.1 Released - New Callback: Optimization Summary Report

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.15.0, adding an optimizer summary report callback and putting the release date into the version information.

Nov 4, 2020
 

msos v1.2.0 Released: Unbalanced data bug fix and a pkgdown site!

software-releases
r

A hotfix for a long-standing bug in lda() on unbalanced data, reported by Trevor Park, alongside a pkgdown site and GitHub Actions testing.

Nov 1, 2020
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.14.2.1 Released - New NSGA2 optimizer and Bug Fixes!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.14.2 ‘No Direction Home’, adding the NSGA2 optimizer for multi-objective functions and scaling AugLagrangian convergence tolerance to the element type.

Sep 10, 2020
 

Automating Dependency Updates with GitHub Actions: The Ensmallen Case

github
github-actions
ensmallen
r
r-package
c++

Replacing the manual routine of syncing the ensmallen C++ library into RcppEnsmallen with a GitHub Actions workflow that watches upstream, refreshes the bundled headers, and opens the pull request itself.

Sep 6, 2020
 

edmdata v1.0.0 Released: Pre-made data sets for Diagnostic Modeling!

software-releases
r

First release of edmdata, collecting data sets from administered assessments used in diagnostic modeling, each documented with what it represents, how it was wrangled, and where it was analyzed.

Aug 17, 2020
 

Custom Box Sync Directory Name and Location on macOS

programming
macos

Box Sync insists on its own folder name and location on every operating system it runs on. How to move the sync directory somewhere sensible on macOS.

Aug 15, 2020
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.13.0.1 Released - Early Stopping with Lambdas and Update Deployment Automation

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.13.0, which lets the early stopping callback take a lambda, and updates the automation that keeps the bundled library current.

Jul 24, 2020

uiucthemes v0.3.1 Released - Upstream compatibility fixes and maintenance

software-releases
r

A compatibility release for newer rmarkdown, replacing the deprecated citation_package = ‘none’ setting and raising the rmarkdown and xaringan requirements.

Jul 24, 2020
 

Dynamically Retriving Latest Pandoc from GitHub and Deploying on the Illinois Campus Cluster

programming
linux

A script that reads the newest Pandoc release straight off GitHub and installs it into a user directory on the Illinois Campus Cluster, so rmarkdown reports render without pinning a version by hand.

May 4, 2020
 

Sending an Email from R with Blastula to Groups of Students

programming
r

Using blastula to send announcements and feedback to groups of students from R, after a survey of the other R email packages and where each one breaks.

Apr 25, 2020
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before R 4.1.0

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 4.0.0 through 4.0.5 series, by installer or by hand. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

Apr 24, 2020
 

Uninstalling the R development toolchain on macOS

programming
cpp

If you installed clang4, clang6, clang7, gfortran 6.1, or the macos-rtools installer, here is how to remove the leftover components cleanly.

Apr 24, 2020
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.12.1.1 Released - QoL and compatibility improvements

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.12.1 ‘Stir Crazy’, correcting the sigma formulation in CMA-ES, fixing ProgressBar epoch and time estimates, and handling sparse subviews in Armadillo 9.870.

Apr 24, 2020
 

Addressing uuid_t error when compiling with Rcpp 1.0.4 on macOS

programming
cpp

The CRAN binary of Rcpp 1.0.4 under R 3.6.3 throws a uuid_t error when compiling on macOS. What causes it and how to get building again.

Mar 28, 2020
 

edina v0.1.1 Released: Estimate an Exploratory Deterministic Input, Noisy ‘and’ Gate Model!

software-releases
r

A high-performance routine for the Exploratory Deterministic Input, Noisy ‘And’ Gate model of Chen et al. (2018), able to estimate Q matrices across a range of k values and compare them.

Mar 26, 2020
 

cIRT v1.3.1 Released: More Modernization and Maintenance Release

software-releases
r

Resolves a CRAN issue with how the package stores its data, and brings in a pkgdown website and GitHub Actions for continuous testing.

Mar 24, 2020
 

errum v0.0.3 Released: Model an Exploratory Reduced Reparameterized Unified Model!

software-releases
r

A high-performance routine for the Exploratory reduced Reparameterized Unified Model of Culpepper and Chen (2018), plus a fix for an ambiguous pow overload on Solaris.

Mar 21, 2020
 

Enabling libssh2 for git2r and usethis

programming
r

The usethis pull request helpers call git2r’s clone(), which cannot speak SSH when git2r was built without libssh2. How to rebuild it with SSH support in place.

Mar 17, 2020
 

errorist v0.1.0 Released: Improved automatic warning searches

software-releases
r

The fourth errorist release reworks warning handling, searching each unique warning instead of only the first and appending the locale-specific warning prefix to the query.

Feb 24, 2020
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.11.3.1 Released - Memory leak fix and other goodies!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.11.3, plugging minor memory leaks, quieting spurious compiler warnings, and allowing callback instantiation for SGD-based optimizers.

Feb 20, 2020
 

searcher v0.0.5 Released - Search Twitter and Search Experience Customizations!

software-releases
r

The largest overhaul yet: adds search_twitter() and a set of options() toggles, including searcher.launch_delay and searcher.use_rstudio_viewer, for tuning the search experience.

Feb 6, 2020
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.11.1.1 Released - New Optimizers and Documentation Improvements!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.11.1 ‘The Poster Session Is Full’, adding the AdaBound and AMSBound optimizers and adopting arbitrary and separable terminology in the static type checks.

Jan 14, 2020
 

msos v1.1.1 Released: House keeping and CRAN Task View Status for Teaching Statistics!

software-releases
r

A housekeeping release that enforces a consistent code style with styler, tidies the DESCRIPTION, and expands the README, as the package earns CRAN Task View status for teaching statistics.

Jan 9, 2020
 

Calling an Rcpp Function with a doParallel Backend

programming
cpp

Packaging a C++ function for use inside a foreach parallel region

Nov 12, 2019
 

Independent Parallel RNG Streams with dqrng

programming
cpp

Reproducible parallel random number generation with per-thread substreams

Nov 11, 2019
 

Advice for Students Looking for a Job in Data Science

real-life

Personal branding advice for students applying to graduate programs, internships, and data science roles, covering resumes and CVs, cover letters, personal websites, social media, and career services, from someone who reviews the packages and writes the references.

Nov 1, 2019
 

uiucthemes v0.3.0 Released - Illinois-themed Metropolis HTML and Beamer Templates

software-releases
r
r-packages
development

Adds Illinois-themed versions of the Metropolis theme in both beamer and HTML, the latter powered by xaringan, with the beamer variant styled through a header-include rather than a full pandoc template swap.

Oct 2, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.10.3.1 Released - Backwards compatibility and vignette example!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.10.3, restoring compatibility with the ensmallen 1.x series and fixing the Armadillo version check plus a ParallelSGD runtime bug.

Sep 30, 2019
 

Overriding RStudio’s Startup Hook inside Rprofile

programming
r

Overriding RStudio’s startup hook from Rprofile to swap a base command for a custom message, following on from the secured CentOS 7 testing environment work.

Sep 14, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.2.10.0.1 Released - Callbacks added and more types!

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 2.10.0 ‘Fried Chicken’. Every Optimize() function now accepts any matrix type, including arma::fmat and sparse matrices, and callbacks can be appended as trailing arguments.

Sep 7, 2019
 

Fully Transitioning to blogdown and hugo finite theme

programming
r

This site’s move to blogdown layered over Hugo with the finite theme, completing a transition that started when it left Jekyll in September 2017.

Sep 5, 2019
 

Installing Hugo on Dreamhost’s Ubuntu 18.04LTS version

programming
linux

Upgrading the Hugo that builds this site on Dreamhost’s Ubuntu 18.04 LTS by downloading and extracting a release binary from GitHub rather than going through a package manager.

Sep 5, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.16.0.1 Released - New LBestPSO Optimizer and Objective Value Control

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.16.0 ‘Loud Alarm Clock’, introducing local-best particle swarm optimization and an option to skip computing the exact objective at the end of a run.

Aug 29, 2019
 

searcher v0.0.4 Released - Search RStudio Community and Read about Search Patterns!

software-releases
r

Adds search_rstudio_community(), renames search_ixquick() to search_startpage(), and ships a vignette on search patterns that actually find answers.

Jul 5, 2019
 

rvw 0.6.0: First release

programming
r

First release of the reworked R interface to the Vowpal Wabbit machine learning system, built by Ivan Pavlov during Google Summer of Code 2018.

Jun 29, 2019
 

Sharing C++ Functions Between R Packages

programming
cpp

Packaging header-only C++ functions for use from another package

Jun 19, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.15.0.1 Released - New QHAdam and QHSGD Optimizers

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.15.0 ‘Wrong Side Of The Road’, adding the QHAdam and QHSGD optimizers and clearing several compiler warnings.

May 20, 2019
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before R 4.0.0

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 3.6.z series, including the Rcpp 1.0.4 build failures that surfaced during the 3.6.3 window. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

May 14, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.14.4.1 Released - More Bug Fixes

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.14.4, a bug-fix release covering BigBatchSGD, correct handling of eig_sym() failures, and SPSA test tolerances.

May 13, 2019
 

R macOS toolchain Evolution

programming
cpp

How the R development toolchain for macOS has shifted across releases, with a version by version summary of what each R series expects from the compiler side.

May 5, 2019
 

Removing the old R Custom gfortran 4.8.2 Binary

programming
cpp

A Symbol not found: ___addtf3 load error usually means R’s old custom gfortran 4.8.2 binary is still sitting in /usr/local. How to confirm that is the cause and remove it cleanly.

May 5, 2019
 

Keeping Up to Date with R Developments

programming
r

The sites, mailing lists, and Slack groups I skim to follow R’s development process, and the main portals worth knowing about.

Apr 23, 2019
 

Improving the Secured Computer-based Testing Environment for R on CentOS 7 using Rprofile and Renviron

programming
r

A second pass at the offline R and RStudio setup for the University of Illinois Computer-based Testing Facility, using Rprofile and Renviron to shape the environment students see during an exam.

Mar 19, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.14.1.1 Released - Added Optimizer DE and Bug Fixes

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.14.1 ‘Difficult Crimp’, adding the DE optimizer, reworking initial population generation for CNE and DE, and fixing Cholesky decomposition in CMAES.

Mar 10, 2019
 

Exposing a BankAccount C++ Class with Rcpp Modules

programming
cpp

Surfacing a C++ class into R with Rcpp Modules

Feb 17, 2019
 

cIRT v1.3.0 Released: Modernization and Maintenance Release

software-releases
r

A modernization pass that refreshes the package dependencies, enables C++11 and OpenMP, hands native registration to Rcpp, and fixes the choice generation procedure.

Jan 25, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.13.0.1 Released - Added Optimizer SPSA and Improved AugLagrangian Optimizer

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.13.0, which adds the SPSA optimizer and widens the option set on the AugLagrangian optimizer.

Jan 21, 2019
 

Resources for Teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

academia

A guide to the instructional infrastructure at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, assembled while making the transition from student to instructor and sorted into four categories of resources.

Jan 10, 2019
 

sitmo v2.0.1 Released

software-releases
r

A point release fixing the parallelization flags in the Makevars files, which reached for the C rather than the C++ OpenMP variable.

Jan 7, 2019
 

Using OpenMP with a C Routine and Rcpp

programming
cpp

Parallelizing a C routine with OpenMP and surfacing it through Rcpp

Jan 5, 2019
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.12.0.1 Released - Added FTML, SWATS, PADAM, Eve Optimizers

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.12.0 ‘New Year’s Party’, adding the FTML, SWATS, Padam, and Eve optimizers.

Jan 4, 2019
 

Calling a Fortran Routine from Rcpp

programming
cpp

Bridging Fortran and C++ with iso_c_binding

Jan 1, 2019
 

Combining a C Routine with Rcpp

programming
cpp

Calling a hand-written C routine from an Rcpp function

Jan 1, 2019
 

Benefits of Using a Sparse Matrix

programming
r

A side-by-side comparison of regular and sparse matrix storage in R, built on a low-probability binomial draw so the matrix is mostly zeros.

Dec 29, 2018
 

Saving and Reading R Objects

programming
r

An Investigation into R’s Serialization Formats

Dec 29, 2018
 

Exposing a Student C++ Class with Rcpp Modules

programming
cpp

A second Rcpp Modules example with a custom Student class

Dec 6, 2018
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.11.1.1 Released - Added WNGrad Optimizer

software-releases
r

Bundles ensmallen 1.11.1 ‘Jet Lag’, which adds the WNGrad optimizer and ships citation information alongside assorted documentation fixes.

Nov 30, 2018
 

Using Google BigQuery to Obtain Reddit Comment Phrase Counts

programming
sql

An r/uiuc thread wondered how often the phrase ‘ask your advisor’ actually gets said. Answering it by querying the Reddit comment corpus in Google BigQuery.

Nov 13, 2018
 

RcppEnsmallen v0.1.10.0.1 Released - Perform Numerical Optimizations with Armadillo in R!

software-releases
r

The first RcppEnsmallen release bundles ensmallen 1.10.0 ‘Corporate Catabolism’, putting the header-only C++ mathematical optimization library in reach of R packages that already build against Armadillo.

Oct 30, 2018

uiucthemes v0.2.1 Released: Market Information Lab @ UIUC Beamer Theme Added

software-releases
r

Adds the beamer_mil() template for the Market Information Lab at UIUC, contributed by Jose Luis Rodriguez, plus a vignette showing screenshots of every template.

Oct 5, 2018
 

R and RStudio in a Secured Environment on CentOS 7

programming
r

How we configured R and RStudio to run fully offline on CentOS 7 inside the University of Illinois Computer-based Testing Facility, so students could be assessed in a secured environment.

Jul 21, 2018
 

cetcolor v0.2.0 Released: CET Perceptually Uniform Color Maps with Support for Colour Blind Users and Short Names

software-releases
r

Updates the 56 perceptually uniform CET colour maps from Peter Kovesi’s June 2016 set to his May 2018 release, with a new naming scheme, short names, and support for colour-blind readers.

Jul 10, 2018
 

searcher v0.0.3 Released

software-releases
r

Brings API parity by turning the rlang flag on by default across every search function, so results stay R-specific rather than drifting to the letter r.

Jul 4, 2018
 

Hiding tempdir() and tempfile() Statements in R Documentation

programming
r

CRAN requires examples to write only to the temporary directory, but the tempdir() and tempfile() scaffolding clutters the documentation. How to satisfy the policy and hide the plumbing.

Jul 1, 2018
 

Ideas for Dates at UIUC

real-life

Date ideas around UIUC that beat dinner and a movie, sorted into adventure outings and laidback ones, with a theatre appendix for when the classic is what you want after all.

Jul 1, 2018
 

sitmo v2.0.0 Released

software-releases
r

Adds the Threefry and Vandercorput engines, welcomes Ralf Stubner as a contributor, and makes Threefry fully C++11 compliant.

Jul 1, 2018
 

Removing Large Files and Sensitive Information using BFG Repo Cleaner

programming
unix

GitHub warns past 50 MB and rejects past 100 MB. Using BFG Repo Cleaner to strip an oversized data set or a leaked secret out of a repository’s history.

May 28, 2018
 

Extracting and Comparing MD5 and SHA256 Hashes

programming
unix

The unofficial macOS Rtools installer fetched binaries without verifying them, leaving room for a man-in-the-middle. Extracting and comparing MD5 and SHA256 hashes to close that gap.

May 28, 2018
 

Common Operations with RcppArmadillo

programming
cpp

A working reference for Armadillo inside R: compiling with sourceCpp(), the Armadillo equivalents of common R syntax, row and column binding, and the other operations that come up every day.

May 27, 2018
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before R 3.6.0

programming
cpp

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 3.5.0 through 3.5.3 series, with pointers to the right post for every other R version. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

May 27, 2018
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on macOS before 3.5.0

programming
cpp
r
rcpp
compilers
os x

Installing the macOS compiler toolchain for the R 3.4.z series, after OS X Mavericks dropped gfortran from the R installer. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

Mar 22, 2018
 

Design hiccups of the tidyverse with rlang

programming
r

The second of two essays critiquing the rlang-enabled tidyverse, written in the StackOverflow R chat and addressed to Hadley Wickham, on non-standard evaluation and the casts it asks for.

Feb 13, 2018
 

Woes of the rlang enabled tidyverse

programming
r

The first of two essays critiquing the rlang-enabled tidyverse, written in the StackOverflow R chat and addressed to Hadley Wickham while he was visiting the room.

Feb 12, 2018
 

errorist v0.0.1 Released

software-releases
r

First release of errorist, which installs handlers on package load so that any error or warning R raises is automatically searched online the moment it appears.

Jan 30, 2018
 

Gift Policy

academia

State ethics law bars me from accepting gifts of monetary value. What I can accept, and value most, is a hand-written card or an email of appreciation sent once the semester is over.

Jan 27, 2018
 

Letters of Recommendation Policy

academia

What I need in order to write a strong letter of recommendation: the guidelines I apply around references, the format to use when requesting one, and what happens after you ask.

Jan 26, 2018

uiucthemes v0.2.0 Released

software-releases
r

Adds a preliminary beamer_orange() minimalist theme, a JSS-style template for student final reports, and new YAML header options covering licensing and the safecol feature.

Jan 22, 2018
 

Remapping C’s printf() to R’s Rprintf()

programming
cpp

Capturing C console output in R through R’s C API

Jan 18, 2018
 

searcher v0.0.2 Released

software-releases
r

Adds the search portal functions, among them search_google(), search_bing(), and search_duckduckgo(), growing out of the idea of looking up R errors and warnings the moment they occur.

Jan 14, 2018

Selecting an alternative compiler for R package testing on Travis-CI

programming
r

Armadillo raised its gcc requirement from 4.6 to 4.7.2, which broke downstream R package builds against Travis-CI’s default image. How to point the build at a newer compiler.

Aug 22, 2017
 

Multiple Linear Regression Proofs

statistics

Least squares proofs for multiple linear regression, worked through matrix derivatives, for anyone who wants to understand the algorithm well enough to implement it themselves.

Jul 11, 2017
 

Making a Uniform Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) with sitmo

programming
r

Building a uniform pseudo random number generator on top of the sitmo parallel PRNG, working from the probability integral transform through to the Rcpp implementation.

Apr 30, 2017
 

Registration of Entry Points in Compiled Code Loaded into R

programming
r

R 3.4 introduced a CRAN check that issues a NOTE when a package makes no calls to R_registerRoutines. What the check is asking for and how to satisfy it. Largely obsolete for Rcpp users since 0.12.13 autogenerates the registration.

Apr 28, 2017
 

sitmo v1.1.0 Released

software-releases
r

Adds src/init.c for the R 3.4 registration requirement, fixes a signed and unsigned integer comparison in the sitmo header, and clarifies the uniform PRNG vignette.

Apr 28, 2017
 

msos v1.1.0 Released

software-releases
r

Revisits the companion package to John Marden’s Multivariate Statistics: Old School, clearing outstanding CRAN checks, moving the documentation off hand-written Rd, and improving the mathematical notation.

Apr 28, 2017
 

visualize v4.3.0 Released

software-releases
r

An R 3.4 era refresh of the first package I ever wrote, which draws a distribution from given parameters and shades the probability attached to a test statistic. Moves the documentation to roxygen2 and the bundled distribution list into sysdata.rda.

Apr 27, 2017
 

cIRT v1.2.1 Released: Maintenance Release

software-releases
r

A maintenance release adding src/init.c for the R 3.4 C++ function registration requirement, keeping cIRT on CRAN.

Apr 27, 2017
 

An Opinionated Tale of Why You Should Replace <- with =

programming
r

An argument, made with some affection and some heat, for reaching for = instead of the arrow as R’s assignment operator, and a look at where the two genuinely differ.

Feb 28, 2017
 

A modulefile Approach to Compiling R on a Cluster

programming
r

Using modulefiles on the Illinois Campus Cluster to compile and load a newer R than the one the cluster staff provide, following on from the earlier post on working with R on a cluster.

Feb 15, 2017
 

Onboarding Script for a Research Group

academia

The onboarding script I settled on for new undergraduate and graduate research assistants, built around spending the first meeting on project scope instead of laptop setup.

Feb 10, 2017
 

Updating a homebrew formula

programming
macos

Notes on updating a Homebrew formula, walked through with the mlpack formula from homebrew/science: the fork, the edit, and the pull request.

Jan 1, 2017
 

To Rcpp Attributes and Beyond From inline

programming
rcpp

Rcpp 0.10.0 brought attributes and made the inline package unnecessary. A row sums case study comparing the old approach against the modern one, and the case for leaving inline behind.

Dec 18, 2016
 

Unofficial Rcpp API Documentation

programming
cpp

An unofficial API reference for Rcpp, assembled from personal notes and teaching materials and formatted after Armadillo’s documentation. A work in progress, updated as time permits.

Oct 21, 2016
 

Mass Adding and Removing Users on Ubuntu

programming
unix

Loading and unloading a semester of student accounts on the Department of Statistics analytics platform, with a script that populates users from a CSV against Kerberos-backed accounts.

Sep 21, 2016

Installing RTools for Compiled Code via Rcpp

programming
cpp

Compiled code through Rcpp needs a toolchain before anything else. An install guide for RTools on Windows, with the equivalent compiler setup for RHEL, CentOS, and Ubuntu.

Jul 25, 2016
 

Porting R’s table function to C++

programming
cpp

Rewriting the frequency counting half of R’s table() in C++, using a std::map to accumulate a count per unique value, with a short test against the original.

May 5, 2016
 

cIRT v1.2.0 Released: New Vignettes and Package News Updates!

software-releases
r

Adds two vignettes covering model estimation and the recovery simulations, and starts tracking package changes in a NEWS.md file.

Apr 14, 2016
 

NumPy Arrays to R Array Objects

Moving NumPy arrays into R array objects with RcppCNPy, so data does not have to be rebuilt from scratch when a project spans Python and R.

Mar 31, 2016

OpenMP in R on OS X

programming

Apple’s default clang ships without OpenMP support, which blocks shared-memory parallelism in compiled R code on macOS. The toolchain options that work around it, and what changed with R 3.4.0.

Mar 19, 2016
 

Working with R on a Cluster

programming
r

Deploying R packages and running simulation studies on the Illinois Campus Cluster, starting with what separates R, Rscript, and R CMD BATCH at the command line.

Mar 14, 2016
 

Selecting a C++ Standard for an R Package

programming
cpp

Choosing the C++ standard a package compiles against with CXX_STD

Mar 3, 2016
 

Set R’s Seed in Rcpp (Sequential Case)

programming
cpp

How to set R’s random seed from inside Rcpp so draws made in C++ stay reproducible, covering the sequential case.

Feb 29, 2016
 

R Data Packages in External Data Repositories using the Additional_repositories field

The final entry in the data package series: shipping data too large for CRAN through an external repository, using drat and the Additional_repositories field.

Jan 17, 2016
 

Creating an R Data Package

The second entry in a three-part series on R data packages: how to build one, and the trade-offs between saving data with plain R code and with the write functions.

Jan 17, 2016

Histogram of CRAN R Package Sizes in MB

Size and Limitations of Packages on CRAN

The first of three entries on R data packages: CRAN’s package guidelines, how a package is distributed, and how much data you can actually ship inside one.

Jan 17, 2016
 

Differences in Primitive Data Types between OS X and Windows

programming
cpp

Porting a MATLAB binary file reader for inertial measurement unit data to C++ surfaced a bug that appeared on only one platform, because primitive type widths do not agree between OS X and Windows.

Jan 9, 2016
 

R Compiler Tools for Rcpp on OS X before R 3.4.0

programming
cpp

Associating a compiler with the OS X build of R for versions 3.0.0 through 3.3.x, back when Mavericks had just dropped gfortran from the installer. A historical post; see the current version for R 4.5.z and later.

Jan 9, 2016
 

cIRT v1.1.0 Released: Additional Choice Information Added

software-releases
r

Adds hard_q_id and easy_q_id columns to the choice matrix, carrying more information about each presented pair of items.

Dec 30, 2015
 

cIRT v1.0.0 Released: Choice Item Response Theory

software-releases
r

First release of cIRT, implementing the hierarchical framework from Culpepper and Balamuta (2015) that jointly models response accuracy and item choice, via a choice-inclusive Probit HLM and a two-parameter ogive model.

Dec 8, 2015
 

Custom as and wrap Converters for a C++ Type

programming
cpp

Teaching Rcpp to move a user-defined struct between R and C++

Nov 7, 2015
 

Sum of Squares Manipulations

statistics

Deconstructing the sum of squares formulations in simple linear regression and showing how the different expressions tie back to one another.

Aug 19, 2015
 

Embedding Compiled Code in Subdirectories of src/

programming
cpp

Using a Makevars file to compile sources from src/ subdirectories

Mar 10, 2015
 

Embedding Multiple Code Files in src/ with Headers

programming
cpp

Separating compiled code into individual units using header files

Mar 10, 2015
 

Using the ff package to load the kaggle criteo data set into R

programming
r

Loading the Criteo display advertising data set from the Kaggle competition into R with the ff package, on a machine with at least 4 GB of RAM and preferably a magnetic disk.

Dec 2, 2014
 

Reproducible Research, R, R Studio, and You!

programming
r

A Friday Brownbag talk for the Illinois Department of Statistics arguing against point-and-click data modification, copy-pasted tables and graphs, and duplicated documentation.

Oct 27, 2014
 

Talkin’ Bout A Big Data Revolution

programming
r

A skeptical look at the Big Data boom, the scramble to add Hadoop and Hive to the curriculum, and how much corporate enthusiasm is real analysis rather than keeping up appearances.

Sep 29, 2014
 

Setting up RStudio to work with RcppArmadillo

programming
cpp

Setting up an RStudio environment for RcppArmadillo, from the packages you need through a first working script, written while converting R code onto R’s C++ API.

May 13, 2014
 

Rcpp, RcppArmadillo and OS X Mavericks “-lgfortran” and “-lquadmath” error

programming
cpp
Editor’s Note 07/26/2017: This post provides an overview of why the gfortran error is occurring along with solutions to fix the macOS R versions:
May 5, 2014
 

Tukey Studentized Range and You!

statistics

A walk through Tukey’s studentized range statistic, covering the internally and externally studentized forms, where the degrees of freedom come from, and a worked pairwise comparison in R.

Apr 8, 2014
 

The Trace of the Kronecker Product

statistics

The Kronecker product as a way of inducing pattern in a matrix, and what becomes of the trace once you take it.

Dec 30, 2013
 

Did you know? UIUC Edition

real-life

A list of the quieter attractions around the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from touring Altgeld Bell Tower to visiting the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Dec 28, 2013
 

M-Answers Multiple Choice Probabilities

statistics

Given that a student picked the right answer on a multiple choice question with m options, what is the probability they actually understood the concept?

Dec 24, 2013
 

Counting how many variables are in a SAS Dataset

sas

Dynamic SAS macros need to know how many variables a dataset holds. The usual array-based answer, and a cleaner query against DICTIONARY.TABLES through %sysfunc.

Dec 24, 2013
 

Writing messages to SAS Log in Color

programming
sas

With mtrace, mprint, mlogic, and symbolgen all switched on, the SAS log becomes unreadable. A little-documented corner of %put lets you send messages to the log in color.

Dec 24, 2013
 

Errors Thrown By SAS Macro Comments

sas

Commenting with a leading asterisk behaves fine in SAS open code but throws errors inside a macro. Why the macro processor chokes on it, and which comment style to reach for instead.

Dec 24, 2013
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