Chapter 5 R Release Names

The most-asked question about R? “Why do R releases have unusual names?”

Answer: “All of the release names are references to Peanuts strips/films.”

In this blog post, Lucy D’Agostino McGowan cataloged those that had been released to that point (2017-07-28, up to 3.5.1).

• “R release names”

Releases since 2017-07-28:

• R 4.0.5 “Shake and Throw” (original strip: 1978-07-30) (R version release date: 2021-03-31)

  • HTTP response status code: 405 Method Not Allowed

• R 4.0.4 “Lost Library Book” (original strip: 1959-03-02) (R version release date: 2021-02-15)

  • Charlie Brown’s lost library book was a weekday series that ran for 11 strips, starting on 1959-03-02, running until [1959-03-13] (https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1959/03/13)

  • The strips were rerun 2006-02-27 through 2006-03-10

  • HTTP response status code: 404 Not Found

  • Peter Dalgaard via twitter pointed out the pun inherent in the name (and the naming of R 4.0.3):

The naming of R 4.0.4

• R 4.0.3 “Bunny-Wunnies Freak Out” (original strip: 1972-10-23) (R version release date: 2020-10-10)

  • The Six Bunny-Wunnies Freak Out is detailed at the Bunny Wunny entry at the Peanuts Wiki

  • HTTP response status code: 403 Forbidden

• R 4.0.2 “Taking Off Again” (original strip: 1962-04-14) (R version release date: 2020-06-22)—two weeks after R 4.0.1 was released, R 4.0.2 was released with a few bug fixes

• R 4.0.1 “See Things Now” (original strip: 1962-02-06) (R version release date: 2020-06-06)

• R 4.0.0 “Arbor Day” (original strip: 1970-04-24) (R version release date: 2020-04-24)

  • The 1976 TV special It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown

• R 3.6.3 “Holding the Windsock” (original strip: 2000-02-29—this date also saw the release of R 1.0.0!) (R version release date: 2020-02-29)

  • Peter Dalgaard’s original announcement of the release of R-1.0.0 to stat.ethz.ch

• R 3.6.2 “Dark and Stormy Night” (original strip: 1965-07-12) (R version release date: 2019-12-12)

  • the first appearance was the beginning of a running storyline that ran for the five subsequent strips (through 1965-07-17)

  • it is a recurring theme in Snoopy’s writings; Lucy points this out in the strip from 1997-04-12

    • there are a few good puns to be made, such as 1983-05-02

  • a complete story was published in 1971 as Snoopy and the Dark and Stormy Night (Holt, Rinehart & Winston); summary here; full text here

  • an in-depth assessment of Snoopy’s use of “It was a dark and stormy night” can be found at tvtropes, under “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night”; see the “Newspaper Comics” folder

  • The literary cliche “It was a dark and stormy night” has its own wikipedia entry

• R 3.6.1 “Action of the Toes” (original strip: 1971-03-22) (R version release date: 2019-07-05)

• R 3.6.0 “Planting of a Tree” (original strip: 1963-03-03) (R version release date: 2019-04-26)

• R 3.5.3 “Great Truth” (original strip: 1959-03-11) (R version release date: 2019-03-11)

• R 3.5.2 “Eggshell Igloos” (original strip: 1960-01-25) (R version release date: 2018-12-20)

(Another source for the strips is the peanuts.fandom.com comics archive)

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