Rturbo/P is a standalone compiler for the P language, a subset of the well known R language for statistical computing and data analysis, extended by various functionalities for parallel programming, simplified porting of algorithms written in C/C++ and simplified formulation statistical formulas.
R is the de-facto standard in statistical computing, stochastic simulation and data analysis. However, when implementing new algorithms in R, the resulting code can be very slow, since R is not a compiled language.
Since most time-critical computational tasks can be implemented using only a small subset of R, the P compiler does not intend to provide full coverage of the R language. However, the most important object types, namely vectors, matrices, and lists are implemented and basic operations for them. Since P code can be easily embedded into R programs, this represents no real constraint. In this way, one has the best from both worlds.
P implements elegant and easy to use extensions for parallel (concurrent) programming aiming at the functionalities a statistician realy needs. Right from the beginning, the P core computing engine was designed to allow for a simple solution to multi-core statistical computing. The runtime engine is thread-safe and, indeed, the engine calls itsef recursively.
Rturbo/P is our blueprint for a next generation R.
The Rturbo/P compiler and the runtime system has been developed by Ansgar Steland, Professor at RWTH Aachen University, in his spare time. All intellectual properties (IP) are hold by Ansgar Steland, Aachen, Germany.