
Chapter 1
Introduction to Parallel
Processing in R
Instead of starting with an abstract overview of parallel programming, we’ll
get right to work with a concrete example in R. The abstract overview can
wait. But we should place R in proper context first.
1.1 Recurring Theme: The Principle of Pretty
Good Parallelism
Most of this book’s examples involve the R programming language, an in-
terpreted language. R’s core operations tend to have very efficient internal
implementation, and thus the language generally can offer good perfor-
mance if used properly.
1.1.1 Fast Enough
In settings in which you really need to maximize execution speed, you may
wish to resort ...