LightNews — News, ranked by scholars

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp now used by 3000 CRAN packages!
Seamless R and C++ integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/02...
#rcpp #rstats

Another milestons -- and another *big big thank you* to the Rcpp Core team, all other contributors, and of course all users!

February 20, 2025 at 10:24 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Just noticed that #Rcpp now tops 100 million downloads per the (known downward-biased subset of CRAN mirrors served via the CDN set up by posit and excluding all other mirrors).

github.com/RcppCore/Rcpp

Image of download counter for Rcpp showing just over 100 million downloads (via a counter that covers the CDN but excludes all other CRAN mirrors)

June 26, 2025 at 10:37 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp 1.0.13-1 on CRAN: Hot Fix
Seamless R and C++ Integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2024/11...
#rstats #rcpp

November 2, 2024 at 9:16 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

I second the recommendation by @econmaett.bsky.social: Rcpp just works, and RcppArmadillo is lovely for linear algebra. Over 3k packages at CRAN use Rcpp and give you examples, as does the Rcpp Gallery, blog posts, old SO questions, .... We help on the rcpp-devel list open to any and all.

June 5, 2025 at 5:00 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

RcppFastAD 0.0.5 on CRAN: Maintenance
R interface to automatic differentiation C++ library
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/09...
#rcpp #rstats

September 24, 2026 at 7:24 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp 1.0.14 on CRAN: Regular Semi-Annual Update
Seamless R and C++ Integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/01...
#rstats #rcpp

Second of two screenshots of blog post at https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/01/12#rcpp_1.0.14 describing release 1.0.14 of CRAN package Rcpp

January 12, 2025 at 8:38 PM

Caro S. 😷

@csynke.bsky.social

This is great news!

Prison Town, one of three comics of RCPP, was an eye opener for me re the building of prisons and the costs to the towns and the surrounding nature.

therealcostofprisonsproject.wordpress.com/rccp-comics/

February 23, 2025 at 12:09 AM

James Balamuta

@coatless.bsky.social

Portable #Rstats for #Windows now ships with Rtools built in. Extract, compile from source, done. No installers, no PATH wrangling, no registry. Just R + gcc in a folder. So, running:

install.packages("Rcpp", type="source")

Now, works out of the box!

github.com/portable-r/portable-r-windows

Windows 11 desktop showing three windows: a PowerShell terminal compiling the Rcpp package from source using g++ from the bundled Rtools45 toolchain, a File Explorer window showing the portable-r-4.5.3-win-x64-full directory containing R files alongside an rtools45 folder, and a second Explorer window showing the library folder with Rcpp and other installed packages.

April 7, 2026 at 4:47 AM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp 1.1.2 on CRAN: Usual Improvements in Semi-Annual Update
Seamless R and C++ Integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/07...
#rcpp #rstats

@kevinushey.bsky.social @enchufa2.es

Screenshot two of two from https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/07/05#rcpp_1.1.2 describing the semi-annual release 1.1.2 of CRAN package Rcpp.

July 5, 2026 at 3:25 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp 1.1.0 on CRAN: C++11 now Minimum via Regular Semi-Annual Update
Seamless R and C++ Integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/07...
#rcpp #rstats

/cc @kevinushey.bsky.social @enchufa2.es

Screenshot 2 of 2 of blog post at https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/07/02#rcpp_1.1.0 describing release 1.1.0 of CRAN package Rcpp

July 2, 2025 at 7:29 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp 1.1.1 on CRAN: Many Improvements in Semi-Annual Update
Seamless R and C++ Integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/01...
#rstats #rcpp

/cc @enchufa2.es @kevinushey.bsky.social

Screenshot 2 of 2 of blog post at https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/01/10#rcpp_1.1.1 describing release 1.1.1 of CRAN package Rcpp

January 10, 2026 at 9:42 PM

Michael "Shapes Dude" Betancourt

@betanalpha.bsky.social

Which dispatches to another package deep in the Rcpp code. I’m not looking for a black box, I’m trying to understand the actual method.

September 25, 2026 at 1:08 PM

Selina Baldauf

@selina-b.bsky.social

Want to learn to write fast R code—and support Ukraine while doing it?
Join my workshop Thursday, August 28th 6-8 pm CEST!

We’ll cover profiling & benchmarking, and take a tour of fast packages like data.table, collapse, Rcpp and more...

With plenty of code examples & hands-on practice!

#rstats

Dariia Mykhailyshyna @dariia.bsky.social · Aug 17

❗️Our next workshop will be on August 28th, 6 pm CEST, on Efficient R by @selina-b.bsky.social
Register or sponsor a student by donating to support Ukraine!
Details: bit.ly/3wBeY4S
Please share!
#AcademicSky #EconSky #RStats

August 17, 2025 at 6:05 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

Rcpp 1.0.12 on CRAN: New Maintenance / Update Release
Seamless R and C++ Integration
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2024/01...
#rcpp #rstats

January 10, 2024 at 2:01 AM

Bruno Rodrigues

@brodriguesco.bsky.social

a new Rcpp release is on CRAN, so upgrading to #RStats 4.4.2 should be fine !

Bruno Rodrigues @brodriguesco.bsky.social · Nov 1

Maybe wait a couple days before upgrading, as Rcpp seems to be broken on 4.4 2

github.com/RcppCore/Rcp...

November 2, 2024 at 9:24 PM

Noah Greifer

@noahgreifer.bsky.social

As an #rstats guy, it has been such a challenge but so rewarding to learn more about C++ through Rcpp. Recently made some changes to MatchIt that speed up nearest neighbor matching by orders of magnitude. 10 million units now takes 30 seconds to match (previously would take hours).

October 26, 2024 at 5:28 PM

Tomasz Woźniak

@tomaszwozniak.bsky.social

It was so so good to work with Monash Uni students on their first steps in C++ programming for R applications! 🚀✨ They made it! And now, they're ready to code! 🤖👾

arp.numbat.space/week11/

#rstats #rcpp #armadillo

May 23, 2025 at 2:56 AM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

RcppExamples 0.1.10: New factor Example, Other Updates
Examples of using Rcpp to interface R and C++
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/03...
#rstats #rcpp

March 17, 2025 at 4:41 PM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

PSA: The long-lived "let us talk about anything and everything" related to #Rcpp mailing list 'rcpp-devel' at R-Forge seems to have moved on to another place where we cannot reach it. May its memory be a blessing. #rstats

Going forward, let's try to connect at this link: github.com/RcppCore/Rcp...

RcppCore Rcpp · Discussions

Explore the GitHub Discussions forum for RcppCore Rcpp. Discuss code, ask questions & collaborate with the developer community.

github.com

January 9, 2026 at 6:36 PM

Hadley Wickham

@hadley.nz

A useful general “principle” is the Lindy effect: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_e.... Rcpp has been around for a long time so it’s likely to continue to be around for a long time.

Lindy effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

October 18, 2025 at 11:41 AM

mdsumner

@mdsumner.bsky.social

{terra} (and any other Rcpp Modules #RStats package could load 2x faster:

github.com/rspatial/ter...

Anyone want to get a PR into Rcpp? Details here:

github.com/mdsumner/Rcp...

September 11, 2026 at 2:25 AM

Dirk Eddelbuettel

@eddelbuettel.com

We can keep going 😆

#rstats #rcpp

$Example of Rcpp function making the explicit 'mean of squares' loop a one expression function: > Rcpp::cppFunction("double ms(NumericVector x) { return mean(x*x); }") > x <- 1:10 > ms(x) [1] 38.5 > mean(x^2) [1] 38.5 >$

January 31, 2026 at 10:29 PM

bsvars

@bsvars.org

⭐ We implemented C++ code using Rcpp and could not be more glad about that! It's a fantastic facility with many functionalities.

✨ And @eddelbuettel.com is answering all Rcpp questions the following Canadian morning, which is so great!

🌐 bsvars.org

#bsvars.org #bsvars #bsvarSIGNs #Rcpp #rstats