What’s New in R: November 10, 2025
Welcome to this week’s edition of What’s New in R! This week, we’re featuring a thoughtful reflection on vibe coding an R package, a new tool for discovering Quarto extensions, and a demonstration of Positron’s Data Explorer. Let’s dive in!
I Vibe Coded an R Package
Jonathan Carroll shares a fascinating reflection on using AI tools to build an R package for visualizing similar Japanese kanji characters. While you may have heard of “vibe coding” as a way to code without traditional programming knowledge, Carroll’s post offers a unique perspective from an experienced developer who uses AI to accelerate package development. He candidly discusses both the benefits—creating a fully documented, tested package in an afternoon for $20—and the limitations, emphasizing that domain knowledge and the ability to guide AI tools remain essential even in this new paradigm.
Quarto Wizard 1.0.0: Democratising Quarto Extension Management
Mickaël Canouil introduces Quarto Wizard, a game-changing extension for VS Code and Positron that simplifies discovering and managing Quarto extensions. With over 250 extensions now available in the Quarto ecosystem, finding the right one for your needs can be challenging. Quarto Wizard provides an intuitive GUI for browsing, installing, and updating extensions, along with a comprehensive directory website that makes extension discovery as easy as browsing a curated gallery.
Explore literary prizes with Positron’s Data Explorer
Julia Silge demonstrates Positron’s Data Explorer using TidyTuesday data on literary prizes. The video provides an excellent walkthrough of how Positron’s Data Explorer works, including features like column pinning, filtering, sorting, and the exciting new “convert to code” functionality that generates code based on your UI interactions. If you watch the video, you’ll see that Julia is actually coding in Python here, but the Data Explorer works the same for R. It’s a valuable resource for anyone curious about Positron’s interactive data viewing capabilities.
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Got any ideas for resources I should feature in future issues of What’s New in R? Leave a comment below!
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