JIT of R code using Ra

I just discovered Ra from Ubuntu repositories. Has anyone used it in actual projects? Have you encountered any problems and are there any trade offs with using Ra instead of R or JIT in开发者_如何学Python general?

Well, I like it. But then it is in Ubuntu ... because I created the Debian package in the first place. And I feature Ra and jit in my 'Intro to High-Performance Computing with R' tutorials (next one on Tuesday at useR! 2010).

But sadly, Steven never got the feedback he anticipated and has stopped updating Ra. The most recent version is R 2.9.*, i.e. from a year ago. This would be worth keeping alive, but a few more people (with highly specialized knowledge) would need to appear on the scene to help...

Since this question was asked the {compiler} R package was introduced. I wrote a post describing what I have found this far regarding the use of JIT and R:

http://www.r-statistics.com/2012/04/speed-up-your-r-code-using-a-just-in-time-jit-compiler/

The post describes some advances since what Dirk wrote in his reply (several of the links in the post are actually to Dirk's newer articles regarding this topic)

I hope this help future R people searching on this topic.