Yihui Xie
Statistician and software engineer who writes R packages for reproducible research and publishing, including knitr, bookdown and blogdown.
Yihui Xie did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
Latest GitHub
What they believe
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The vast majority of open-source software developers are unpaid and go unnoticed.
A great many (perhaps the vast majority) of open-source software developers are unpaid and even unnoticed.
yihui.orgSaid 10 Sept 2026This on korrents
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WebP images are typically 25-35% smaller than PNG at equivalent visual quality
WebP is typically 25-35% smaller than PNG at equivalent visual quality, useful for HTML reports where file size matters
yihui.orgSaid 9 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
21 October
20 October
19 October
- xfun — Miscellaneous R functions
- tinyimg — An R package for optimizing and compressing images
- testit — A simple package for testing R packages
+ 8 more
- servr — A simple HTTP server in R
- travis-exitwp — Upload your WordPress XML to this repo, and download Markdown posts in a minute
- latex-pass — Help you pass the LaTeX compilation by telling you which LaTeX packages are missing to compile your documents
- MSG — Modern Statistical Graphics （《现代统计图形》的附加包）
- printr — Some (magical) printing methods for knitr
- fun — Use R for Fun
- Rd2roxygen — Convert Rd to roxygen documentation
- xaringan — Presentation Ninja 幻灯忍者 · 写轮眼
21 September
20 September
10 September
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Their words
A great many (perhaps the vast majority) of open-source software developers are unpaid and even unnoticed.
9 September
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Their words
WebP is typically 25-35% smaller than PNG at equivalent visual quality, useful for HTML reports where file size matters
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 11 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
The vast majority of open-source software developers are unpaid and go unnoticed.
A great many (perhaps the vast majority) of open-source software developers are unpaid and even unnoticed.
Should I Ask for Sponsorship? Said 10 Sept 2026
WebP images are typically 25-35% smaller than PNG at equivalent visual quality
WebP is typically 25-35% smaller than PNG at equivalent visual quality, useful for HTML reports where file size matters
A Review of **knitr** Updates from 2024 to 2026 Said 9 Sept 2026
Standardizing document or table tooling on HTML instead of PDF, LaTeX, or RTF removes most of the underlying complexity.
Once you commit to HTML, an enormous amount of complexity simply evaporates.
The lt Package: Lightweight HTML Tables for R (and Beyond) Said 10 Jul 2026
Show 8 more
Unit testing's only job should be to flag when something unexpected happens.
I still believe that unit testing should be nothing more than "tell me if something unexpected happened."
Converting testthat Tests to testit Said 15 May 2026
A tool's popularity can become a self-reinforcing network effect rather than a sign of technical merit.
The popularity feeds the tooling, and the tooling feeds the popularity. That's not a technical argument-it's a network effect.
Converting testthat Tests to testit Said 15 May 2026
Needing to mock code in tests often signals an underlying design problem that refactoring would fix.
unless the code is completely out of your control, the need for mocking often indicates a design problem-consider refactoring to make the code easier to test directly.
Converting testthat Tests to testit Said 15 May 2026
Closing and deleting a question to enforce site rules harms the real person who needed help, not just violates policy.
The point is a user is looking for help, and a maintainer is willing to help and knows a solution. They are all real humans. You guys are hurting them by closing and deleting the question.
Bye, Stack Overflow Said 15 May 2026
People only truly grasp the harm of a gatekeeping rule once that same rule is turned against their own work.
All they need before they can truly appreciate empathy and humanity is one thing: have one of their own posts closed and deleted by another group of gatekeepers.
Bye, Stack Overflow Said 15 May 2026
Software development will shift from centralized systems to highly personalized, proliferating software abundance.
Going forward, I think the future will be filled with software abundance, or, more accurately, I'd call it "software proliferation". That is, centralized development will be history. Software will be highly personalized, especially for open source software.
Reflections on AI-assisted Programming Said 3 May 2026
AI coding assistants are leveling the skill gap between software developers who can afford to use them.
Skill-wise, most software developers, as long as they are willing/able to pay for AI assistants, are on the same page now.
Reflections on AI-assisted Programming Said 3 May 2026
The moral debt for AI's capabilities is owed to the authors of the public data used to train it, not to the AI companies.
We owe a debt, not to companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google, but to the authors of the free public raw materials that were used to train AI.
Reflections on AI-assisted Programming Said 3 May 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 9 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Mixed on Ubuntu
I work under Ubuntu for the most of time with open source software packages. I dislike the default Unity interface like others.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Uses Thinkpad T510
I use a Thinkpad T510 (15.6-inch screen, 4GB RAM, Intel Core i5 CPU).
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Uses knitr
I use my knitr package to generate reports directly from code (literate programming); the "reports" may include homework, blog posts, websites, papers and books.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
their own
Show 6 more
Uses pandoc
I'm visually tired of beamer slides (mainly because too many people use the same style), and I use pandoc to create HTML5 slides.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Loved MathJax
The other amazing JS application that I use is MathJax, which allows me to write LaTeX math in web pages.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Liked Jekyll
Finally I came to Jekyll, a blog engine for hackers. I'm pretty happy with it since I will never worry about databases; I just write simple Markdown posts and push them to Github via Git.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Uses LyX
For typesetting I use LyX which is a wrapper for LaTeX, and I have argued with other people for many times that writing raw LaTeX is not helpful after you have mastered LaTeX, although I absolutely love LaTeX and avoid Word.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Uses R
For programming and data analysis, I primarily use R since I'm a statistician.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Uses RStudio
Emacs was my editor before I switched to RStudio; for small tasks, I just use the default editor gedit.
usesthis.com 27 Nov 2012
Where they publish
Site yihui.org His bilingual site of notes and posts on R, statistics and publishing.
Recent
- Three New Debugging Aids in knitr 21 Sept 2026 Note This is one of a few posts on new features from a recent four-day knitr backlog sprint; see that post for the full details of the sprint. When a document fails to knit, the worst part isn’t the error—it…
- The knitr SQL Engine Grows Up 21 Sept 2026 Note This is one of a few posts on new features from a recent four-day knitr backlog sprint; see that post for the full details of the sprint. knitr’s sql engine lets you write a SQL query in a code chunk, run it…
- Tangling Gets Smarter in knitr 21 Sept 2026 Note This is one of a few posts on new features from a recent four-day knitr backlog sprint; see that post for the full details of the sprint. Tangle is the old Literate Programming (e.g., WEB/Sweave) term for pulling t…
Show 7 more
- spin() Improvements in knitr 21 Sept 2026 Note This is one of a few posts on new features from a recent four-day knitr backlog sprint; see that post for the full details of the sprint. The concept of spin() is like the reverse of purl(). Instead of pulling code…
- More Capable Cache in knitr 21 Sept 2026 Note This is one of a few posts on new features from a recent four-day knitr backlog sprint; see that post for the full details of the sprint. knitr’s chunk cache is one of those features that may have quietly sav…
- Better Tables with knitr::kable() 21 Sept 2026 Note This is one of a few posts on new features from a recent four-day knitr backlog sprint; see that post for the full details of the sprint. kable() is deliberately minimal—it makes a simple table and gets out o…
- A Four-Day knitr Issue/PR Backlog Sprint 20 Sept 2026 After knitr v1.52 went to CRAN on 2026-09-06, I did something I don’t do often but have been hoping to do: I sat down and worked through the GitHub issue tracker more or less top to bottom. Over the past four days…
- Should I Ask for Sponsorship? 10 Sept 2026 For two and a half years, from January 2024 to June 2026, Posit paid me as a contractor to maintain the R Markdown ecosystem (rmarkdown, knitr, bookdown, blogdown, pagedown, etc.). That contract was terminated in June t…
- A Review of **rmarkdown** Updates from 2024 to 2026 9 Sept 2026 Back in 2022, I promised that R Markdown wouldn’t die. In this post, I’ll give a summary of notable updates in rmarkdown v2.26–v2.32 (2024–2026). For the full changelog, please see the release no…
- A Review of **knitr** Updates from 2024 to 2026 9 Sept 2026 It’s been a long while since I announced updates in knitr last time, so I’m writing this post to cover notable changes in knitr v1.46–v1.52. For the full changelog, please see the release notes on GitHub. I…
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Mastodon @yihui@mastodon.social
Link verified 5 Sept 2026.
GitHub @yihui knitr, bookdown, blogdown and the source of yihui.org itself.
Recent
- ctan-tlnet — Sync the tlnet directory from CTAN to CDN 21 Oct 2026
- pkg-sites 20 Oct 2026
- lt — Lightweight static and interactive HTML tables for R 20 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- lite.js — Miscellaneous lightweight tools and utilities in JavaScript 20 Oct 2026
- xfun — Miscellaneous R functions 19 Oct 2026
- tinyimg — An R package for optimizing and compressing images 19 Oct 2026
- testit — A simple package for testing R packages 19 Oct 2026
- servr — A simple HTTP server in R 19 Oct 2026
- travis-exitwp — Upload your WordPress XML to this repo, and download Markdown posts in a minute 19 Oct 2026
- latex-pass — Help you pass the LaTeX compilation by telling you which LaTeX packages are missing to compile your documents 19 Oct 2026
- MSG — Modern Statistical Graphics （《现代统计图形》的附加包） 19 Oct 2026
- printr — Some (magical) printing methods for knitr 19 Oct 2026
- fun — Use R for Fun 19 Oct 2026
- Rd2roxygen — Convert Rd to roxygen documentation 19 Oct 2026
- xaringan — Presentation Ninja 幻灯忍者 · 写轮眼 19 Oct 2026
- yihui.org — Personal website and discussion board of Yihui Xie | 谢益辉 19 Oct 2026
- formatR — Format R Code Automatically 19 Oct 2026
- highr — Syntax Highlighting for R Source Code 19 Oct 2026
- arith.js — 简单的四则运算练习程序 19 Oct 2026
- animation — A gallery of animations in statistics and utilities to create animations 19 Oct 2026
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.