It looks like R is getting an official pipe operator (ref). R doesn’t work under an RFC process, so we hear about these things and they are discussed on the R-devel mailing list.
I’ve written on this topic before (ref), and I have taped some new comments. This sort of pipe is a combination of function composition and function application.
(link)
My feeling is: argument inserting syntax translation is indeed a tempting way to go. I think this misses some great coding opportunities that arise when one can guarantee the piped entity is a realized value and also use placeholders. Also a lot is lost when one fails to work out some of the niceties in piping into expressions instead of just functions. But, I understand nobody has asked me.
Function oriented syntax transform appears to be both what RStudio wants, and what R-core is implementing (please keep in mind, these are two different actors in the R-space). So it is what it is.
jmount
Data Scientist and trainer at Win Vector LLC. One of the authors of Practical Data Science with R.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the interesting video.