Make Your R Code 10x Faster: Vectorization Explained in 3 Minutes

Your code after vectorization. Photo by Nate Johnston on Unsplash

R doesn’t have a reputation for being a fast programming language. Compared to speedier counterparts like C++, it’s sluggish at best. That said, you can make your R code run a lot faster if you understand a key concept that underlies the entire language.

This concept is called vectorization, and you can learn about it in three minutes.

In R, vectors are a basic type of variable that contain …

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