blog.qmd.rsp

---
title: Blog Posts
description: Updates, tips & tricks, and explanations on futures
preview: images/site_preview.png
---

<style>
/* Borrowed from https://www.tidyverse.org/blog/ */
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 margin-bottom:30px
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<% blog_post <- function(title, url, date, author = "Henrik Bengtsson", description = "", image = "", image_alt = "") { %>
<%
if (nzchar(image)) {
  img_name <- tools::file_path_sans_ext(basename(image))
  img_file <- file.path("images", sprintf("%s.png", img_name))
  if (!utils::file_test("-f", img_file)) {
    library(magick)
    img <- image_read(image)
    if (length(img) > 2) img <- img[min(1L, floor(length(img)/2))]
    img <- image_scale(img, "150x")
    # Crop height?
    info <- image_info(img)
    if (info$height > 150) img <- image_crop(img, "150x150")
    pathname <- image_write(img, path = img_file, format = "png")
  }
  stopifnot(utils::file_test("-f", img_file))
  image <- img_file
}
%>
<div class="listItem">
 <div class="itemImage">
  <% if (nzchar(image)) { %>
  <a href="<%= url %>"><img src="<%= image %>" alt="<%= gsub(">", "&gt;", image_alt) %>"/></a>
  <% } %>
 </div>
 <div class="itemDetails">
  <div class="itemHeader">
   <div class="itemTitle"><a href="<%= url %>"><%= title %></a>
   </div>
  </div>
  <div class="itemMeta">
   <div class="author"><%= author %></div>
   <% if (nzchar(description)) { %><div class="itemDescription"><%= description %></div><% } %>
   <div class="itemDate"><%= date %></div>
  </div>
 </div>
</div>
<% } ## blog_post() %>

 

<% blog_post(
        title = "futurize: Parallelize Common Functions via a \"Magic\" Touch 🪄",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2026/01/22/futurize-0.1.0/",
         date = "2026-01-22",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/futurize-workflow.png",
    image_alt = "Diagram illustrating how sequential R map-reduce code can be parallelized with |> futurize(). On the left, sequential functions such as lapply(…), purrr::map(…), foreach(…) %do%, plyr::llply(…), and others flow into a central box labeled |> futurize() with magic-wand icons, indicating automatic transformation. On the right, the transformed code fans out to multiple parallel workers (Worker 1, Worker 2, Worker 3, …), whose outputs are combined into a single 'Results' node."
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Futures: Interrupts, Crashes, and Retries",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2025/10/16/interrupts-crashes-retries/",
         date = "2025-10-16",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/interrupts-crashes-retries.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of Interrupts 🛑 Crashes 💥 Retries 🔁"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "foreach: Making All %dopar% Behave Like %dofuture% Everywhere",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2025/10/08/dofuture-everywhere/",
         date = "2025-10-07",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/future-logo-balloons.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'future' hexlogo balloon wall"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Setting Future Plans in R Functions — and Why You Probably Shouldn't",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2025/06/25/with-plan/",
         date = "2025-06-25",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/future-logo-balloons.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'future' hexlogo balloon wall"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Future Got Better at Finding Global Variables",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2025/06/23/future-got-better-at-finding-global-variables/",
         date = "2025-06-23",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/future-logo-balloons.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'future' hexlogo balloon wall"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Futureverse – Ten-Year Anniversary",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2025/06/19/futureverse-10-years/",
         date = "2025-06-19",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/future-logo-balloons.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'future' hexlogo balloon wall"
) %>
 
<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly: Querying, Killing and Cloning Parallel Workers Running Locally or Remotely",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2023/07/01/parallelly-managing-workers/",
         date = "2023-07-01",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly-logo.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'parallelly' hex logo"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "%dofuture% - a Better foreach() Parallelization Operator than %dopar%",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2023/06/26/dofuture/",
         date = "2023-06-26",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/dopar-to-dofuture.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail: Two lines of code, where the first line shows 'y <- foreach(...) %dopar% { ... }'. The second line 'y <- foreach(...) %dofuture% { ... }'. The %dopar% operator is crossed out and there is a line down to %dofuture% directly below."
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly 1.34.0: Support for CGroups v2, Killing Parallel Workers, and more",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2023/01/18/parallelly-1.34.0-support-for-cgroups-v2-killing-parallel-workers-and-more/",
         date = "2023-01-18",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly-logo.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'parallelly' hex logo"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "progressr 0.13.0: cli + progressr = ♥",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2023/01/10/progressr-0.13.0/",
         date = "2023-01-10",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/three_in_chinese.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of Three strokes writing three in Chinese"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Please Avoid detectCores() in your R Packages",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/12/05/avoid-detectcores/",
         date = "2022-12-05",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/detectCores_bad_vs_good.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of screenshots of two terminal-based, colored graphs showing near 100% load on all 24 CPU cores"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly: Support for Fujitsu Technical Computing Suite High-Performance Compute (HPC) Environments",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/06/09/parallelly-support-for-fujitsu-technical-computing-suite-high-performance-compute-hpc-environments/",
         date = "2022-06-09",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly-logo.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'parallelly' hex logo"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly 1.32.0: makeClusterPSOCK() Didn't Work with Chinese and Korean Locales",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/06/08/parallelly-1.32.0-makeclusterpsock-didnt-work-with-chinese-and-korean-locales/",
         date = "2022-06-08",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly-logo.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'parallelly' hex logo"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "progressr 0.10.1: Plyr Now Supports Progress Updates also in Parallel",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/06/03/progressr-0.10.1/",
         date = "2022-06-03",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/three_in_chinese.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of Three strokes writing three in Chinese"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly 1.31.1: Better at Inferring Number of CPU Cores with Cgroups and Linux Containers",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/04/22/parallelly-1.31.1/",
         date = "2022-04-22",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly-logo.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'parallelly' hex logo"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.24.0: Forwarding RNG State also for Stand-Alone Futures",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/02/22/future-1.24.0-forwarding-rng-state-also-for-stand-alone-futures/",
         date = "2022-02-22",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/xkcd_221-random_number.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the XKCD #221 comic on a random number generator that always return 4"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Future Improvements During 2021",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2022/01/07/future-during-2021/",
         date = "2022-01-07",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/paragliding_mount_tamalpais_20220101.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of first person view while paragliding in the mountains on a sunny day with blue skies and the beach and the ocean down below"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly 1.29.0: New Skills and Less Communication Latency on Linux",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2021/11/22/parallelly-1.29.0/",
         date = "2021-11-22",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly-logo.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the 'parallelly' hex logo"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "progressr 0.8.0: RStudio's Progress Bar, Shiny Progress Updates, and Absolute Progress",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2021/06/11/progressr-0.8.0/",
         date = "2021-06-11",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/progressr-rstudio.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the the part of the RStudio Console panel that displays a progress bar"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly 1.26.0: Fast, Concurrent Setup of Parallel Workers (Finally)",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2021/06/10/parallelly-1.26.0/",
         date = "2021-06-10",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/parallelly_faster_setup_of_cluster.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a graph showing that launching parallel workers parallelly rather than sequentially is much faster"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly 1.25.0: availableCores(omit=n) and, Finally, Built-in SSH Support for MS Windows 10 Users",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2021/04/30/parallelly-1.25.0/",
         date = "2021-04-30",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/nasa-climate-ice-core-small.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of an ice core held in front of the camera on a sunny day at snow-covered flat landscape"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Using Kubernetes and the Future Package to Easily Parallelize R in the Cloud",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2021/04/08/future-and-kubernetes/",
         date = "2021-04-08",
       author = "Chris Paciorek",
  description = "A guest post by Chris Paciorek, Department of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley.",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/k8s.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of an overview diagram of using future on a Kubernetes cluster"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future.BatchJobs - End-of-Life Announcement",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2021/01/08/future.batchjobs-end-of-life-announcement/",
         date = "2021-01-08",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/sign_out_of_service_do_not_use.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a Sign reading: Out of Service - Do not use!"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.20.1 - The Future Just Got a Bit Brighter",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2020/11/06/future-1.20.1-the-future-just-got-a-bit-brighter/",
         date = "2020-11-06",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/sparkles-through-space.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a colorful, sparkling lights positioned in circles with star-like lights on a black background in the distance"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "parallelly, future - Cleaning Up Around the House",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2020/11/04/parallelly-future-cleaning-up-around-the-house/",
         date = "2020-11-04",
        image = "images/parallelly_future.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of the dictionary definitions of the words 'parallelly' and 'future'"
) %>


<% blog_post(
        title = "Trust the Future",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2020/11/04/trust-the-future/",
         date = "2020-11-04",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/you_dont_have_to_worry_about_your_future.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a fortune cookie that reads 'You do not have to worry about your future'"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.19.1 - Making Sure Proper Random Numbers are Produced in Parallel Processing",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2020/09/22/push-for-statical-sound-rng/",
         date = "2020-09-22",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/Digital_rain_animation_medium_letters_clear.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of green Japanese Kana symbols raining down in parallel on a black background inspired by The Matrix movie"        
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Detect When the Random Number Generator Was Used",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2020/09/21/detect-when-the-random-number-generator-was-used/",
         date = "2020-09-21",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/DistortedRecentEland_50pct.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a roulette wheel"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future and future.apply - Some Recent Improvements",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2020/07/11/future-future.apply-recent-improvements/",
         date = "2020-07-11"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.15.0 - Lazy Futures are Now Launched if Queried",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2019/11/09/resolved-launches-lazy-futures/",
         date = "2019-11-09",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/lazy_dog_in_park.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a man with a lazy dog does not want to leave park"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Parallelize a For-Loop by Rewriting it as an Lapply Call",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2019/01/11/parallelize-a-for-loop-by-rewriting-it-as-an-lapply-call/",
         date = "2019-01-11",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/Honolulu_IFSS_Teletype1964.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of paper tape relay operation at US FAA's Honolulu flight service station in 1964 showing a large number of punch tapes"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Maintenance Updates of Future Backends and doFuture",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2019/01/07/maintenance-updates-of-future-backends-and-dofuture/",
         date = "2019-01-07",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/the-future-is-now.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of an old TV screen struggling to display the text 'THE FUTURE IS NOW'"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.9.0 - Output from The Future",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2018/07/23/output-from-the-future/",
         date = "2018-07-23",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/Signaling_by_Napoleonic_semaphore_line.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of an illustration of communication by mechanical semaphore on the country side in 1800s France"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future.apply - Parallelize Any Base R Apply Function",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2018/06/23/future.apply_1.0.0/",
         date = "2018-06-23",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/future.apply_1.0.0-htop_32cores.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a terminal window showing 0% to 100% utilization"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.8.0: Preparing for a Shiny Future",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2018/04/12/future-results/",
         date = "2018-04-12",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/retro-shiny-future-small.png",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail showing R code using futures on an orange retro terminal screen"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "The Many-Faced Future",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2017/06/05/many-faced-future/",
         date = "2017-06-05",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/julia_sets.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a Julia Set"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "doFuture: A Universal Foreach Adaptor Ready to be Used by 1,000+ Packages",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2017/03/18/dofuture/",
         date = "2017-03-18",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/programmer_next_to_62500_punch_cards_SAGE.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a programmer standing beside punched cards"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "future 1.3.0: Reproducible RNGs, future_lapply() and More",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2017/02/19/future-rng/",
         date = "2017-02-19",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/funny_car_magnet_animated.gif",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a silent movie clip of man in a cart catching a ride with a car passing by using a giant magnet"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "High-Performance Compute in R Using Futures ",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2016/10/22/future-hpc/",
         date = "2016-10-22",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/future_mainframe_red.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a retro room with a classical mainframe computer and work desks"
) %>

<% blog_post(
        title = "Remote Processing Using Futures",
          url = "https://www.jottr.org/2016/10/11/future-remotes/",
         date = "2016-10-11",
        image = "https://www.jottr.org/post/early_days_video_call.jpg",
    image_alt = "Thumbnail of a postcard from 1900 showing how people in the year 2000 will communicate using audio and projected video"
) %>