At the useR! 2014 conference, without a doubt one of the overriding themes was R’s history, legacy, and future as an interface into the “best of the best” algorithms which were available. Romain Francois’ package, Rcpp11, is at the forefront and was explicitly showcased as one of the ways in which R was staying true to it’s roots as an interface.

An R programmer for over a decade, Romain started as an “R first” developer, only later moving to more traditional software engineering languages. In this interview, Romain and I discuss a wide range of topics, from R’s history as an interface for algorithms, through Romain’s experiences in HPC and his collaboration with Hadley Wickham on dplyr. Romain also shares a little bit about his other passion, stand-up comedy.