R-alpha: thoughts on batch and fortran

[Jim Lindsey]

Batch:
  For me, batch in its present state is broken and useless. My primary
need for batch is to produce a final output file of a session after I
have worked out a sequence of procedures. I save my instructions in a
file that I can source, then run it in batch to have a copy of input
and output together. (If there was a log file (or dribble), this
problem would be solved.) At present, there are two problems with batch:
(1) I always run R interactively with saving the .RData shut off. This
is not possible in batch. Robert promised that it would be changed in
R0.14 but that never occurred so I am obliged to modify the C code of
each new version of R to avoid the problems of rereading .RData that I
described at that time.
(2) In any case, since 0.49, I cannot use batch because, as soon as
it hits a plot instruction, it stops with an error.

Fortran:
  I think that, if .Fortran is to exist, then the full fortran library
(except I/O) should be available, not just those functions required by
the basic R. I am thinking in particular of the complex functions that
I require for Kalman filtering in carma (soon to be released as a
dynamic library). Having the full f2c library linked in (-lf2c, when it
works under Linux - see the recent comments of my son, Patrick) does
not take more space unless it is actually used because it is dynamic.
carma will not work without these functions so how can I release
something that will not work for most users?
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