[R] Does R have a "const object"?

[luke-tierney at uiowa.edu]

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:49 AM,  <luke-tierney at uiowa.edu> wrote:
>> Just as a heads-up: it is likely that unlocking the bindings in base
>> for pi, T, F, probably all BULTIN and SPECIAL functions, and possibly
>> more, will start signaling warnings in the near future.  Doing this
>> may be useful at times for debugging but it can mess up assumptions
>> others make about how things in base work and so reduce code
>> reliability.
>
> That seems ok for pi, T and F but if its extended to everything in
> base then I would hope there is a nowarn= argument or other easy way
> to avoid the warning message.
>

That would defeat the purpose.  Unlocking things in base may be useful
for experimenting or debugging but it is not a good idea otherwise.
[? assignInNamespace could be more explicit on htis and will be soon.]
There is a reason we lock bindings in the first place, and that is so
one can assume that these bindings have certain values and certain
properties and one can write reliable programs against these
assumptions.

Best,

luke

-- 
Luke Tierney
Statistics and Actuarial Science
Ralph E. Wareham Professor of Mathematical Sciences
University of Iowa                  Phone:             319-335-3386
Department of Statistics and        Fax:               319-335-3017
    Actuarial Science
241 Schaeffer Hall                  email:      luke at stat.uiowa.edu
Iowa City, IA 52242                 WWW:  http://www.stat.uiowa.edu