I noticed that in https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/src/library/stats/R/loess.R that we are now calling R_loess_raw, R_lowesw, R_lowesp, etc. I'm interested to know what is the benefit/reason for the 'R_', as I am unfamiliar with this prefix and do not see it mentioned in 'Writing R Extensions.' Thanks, Ben