The creator of R packages such as R Markdown, knitr, blogdown, and bookdown will continue working as a part-time contractor for Posit to maintain some of his packages. Credit: Lee Charlie / Shutterstock Yihui Xie, well-known in the R community as the creator of R packages such as R Markdown, knitr, blogdown, and bookdown, has been laid off from Posit, where he worked as a full-time software developer. Xie announced the layoff, which happened at the end of December, in a blog post this week. He said he would continue working as a part-time contractor for Posit to maintain some of his packages. “I was quite surprised but only for a short moment,” he wrote. “I fully respected Posit’s decision and quickly accepted the conclusion that my contribution no longer deserved a full-time job here.” Some R users reacted with shock. “Absolutely devastating news. I would not have accomplished what I have accomplished in the last decade without Yihui’s work on knitr,” research software engineer Zhian N. Kamvar posted on Mastodon. “If you’ve ever encountered a website, report, or book built with RStats in recent memory, you have Yihui to thank. Until he gets a new position, he’s looking for sponsorship” on GitHub. As of this afternoon, Xie had more than 150 GitHub sponsors. (Disclosure: This list includes me; I used his bookdown package when writing my book Practical R for Mass Communication and Journalism.) Xie’s departure after 10 years at Posit is another signal that the company, formerly RStudio, is focusing on products that offer interoperability between R and Python. An example of the company’s recent shift is the Quarto open source technical publishing platform, announced in 2022, which is language-agnostic and equally supports both R and Python, as well as Julia and Observable JavaScript. The company said at the time that Quarto was the next generation of R Markdown, although R Markdown would not go away. However, users were told to expect that cool new features would be targeted at Quarto. The month before Xie was let go, Python pandas creator Wes McKinney joined Posit, also a signal that the company was serious about broadening its focus beyond R. McKinney said at the time that he would “advocate for the needs of the PyData ecosystem in Posit’s work as well as continue advancing critical open-source initiatives.” Xie’s packages like R Markdown and knitr were a key attraction for many R users, easing the task of presenting the results of data analysis in engaging ways. His work also aimed to “make R and reproducible research more accessible”, Xie said. His xaringan R Markdown extension, for example, was an R implementation of the remark.js JavaScript library, allowing for interactive slide presentations of R-based analysis. Xie said Posit has “generously provided funding for me to continue, as a contractor, to support and extend knitr, rmarkdown, and various packages in this ecosystem. I look forward to continuing my collaboration with the Posit team on our shared areas of interest.” The DT package is not among the packages being maintained, however. Xie said that Posit plans to find a new maintainer for that one. “The end of a relationship often does not imply anything wrong or a failure of either party,” Xie wrote. “Instead, it can simply indicate a mismatch, which is normal.” Related content analysis Beyond the usual suspects: 5 fresh data science tools to try today The mid-month report includes quick tips for easier Python installation, a new VS Code-like IDE just for Python and R users, and five newer data science tools you won't want to miss. By Serdar Yegulalp Jul 12, 2024 2 mins Python Programming Languages Software Development analysis Generative AI won’t fix cloud migration You’ve probably heard how generative AI will solve all cloud migration problems. It’s not that simple. Generative AI could actually make it harder and more costly. By David Linthicum Jul 12, 2024 5 mins Generative AI Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing news HR professionals trust AI recommendations HireVue survey finds 73% of HR professionals trust AI to make candidate recommendations, while 75% of workers are opposed to AI making hiring decisions. By Paul Krill Jul 11, 2024 3 mins Technology Industry Careers how-to Safety off: Programming in Rust with `unsafe` What does it mean to write unsafe code in Rust, and what can you do (and not do) with the 'unsafe' keyword? The facts may surprise you. By Serdar Yegulalp Jul 11, 2024 8 mins Rust Programming Languages Software Development Resources Videos