Introduction

My colleage Andrew and I have been super interested in combining Node.js and R, especially after coming across a compelling use case that helps us to simplify Firebase data fetching.

Read on to learn more about:

Why you might want to combine Node.js and R
How you might go about combining Node.js and R
What a Jdenticon/identicon is

Why?

Rather than designing a multi-step process that would involve running a query in Node.js, and then sending the data to R, Andrew was able to grab the few functions that we needed directly from the firebase npm package.

This is huge, because it enables any R user on our team to pull data without knowing any JavaScript at all. The only prerequisite is a Node.js installation that is already setup on our Posit Workbench server.

Even though we only need to use JavaScript for a few fairly simple queries, there is still quite a bit of a learning curve for anyone who is unfamiliar. Not only is the language different than R, but there are also DevOps considerations like:

Installing Node.js and using npm to install libraries.
Managing and securing service account credentials.
Ensuring maintainability.
Enabling users to have the ability to customize queries when needed.

Wrapping all of this functionality into a few R functions solves all of the issues above. As mentioned, Node.js is available for all users on Workbench. Additionally, secure credentials can be permissioned to users that need them, which is safer and less work for everyone.

Since the functions are written in R, there is already built-in customization by tweaking parameters as needed. Similarly, an R user is much better equipped to maintain an R package, than needing to maintain a Node.js custom query that is ingested by an R package.

How?

Most of this post, and the start of my understanding of this topic, is due to Colin Fay’s blog post. This was incredibly helpful for me to keep referencing, and to provide some great context for how to implement this for your own package.

Instead of re-writing a (worse) version of Colin’s post, I’d 100% recommend reading over it a few times and giving it a shot for your own project. Also, feel free to send me an email 📧 (matthewroumaya@gmail.com) if you’d like to connect and troubleshoot!

What is Jdenticon?

Jdenticon is a Node.js library that generates identicons, which are:

An Identicon is a visual representation of a hash value, usually of an IP address, that serves to identify a user of a computer system as a form of avatar while protecting the users’ privacy. ¹

If you’ve ever been on Stack Overflow, then you know what an identicon is.

If you make an account, you’ll automatically be given your own individual identicon, which will look something like this ²:

Speaking of Stack Overflow, I came across this question about generating identicons in R using Node.js, and I jumped at the opportunity to use my new knowledge.

The OP’s profile made it easy to find them, so I sent over an email with a minimally working R package. Dr. Morey significantly improved the package with a PR, and I’m grateful to be able to collaborate on a tiny open-source wrapper for a cool little library.

The best way to look at how this package was built and structured is probably to check it out on GitHub.

How To

To create your own jdenticon, you can run the following in R:

library(jdenticon) 

jdenticon::jdenticon(
    value = "any_value", 
    filePath = here::here("posts", "jdenticon"),  
    fileName = "my_jd"
    )

Then you can use your jdenticon!

html`<img src="my_jd.png" class="img-jdenticon">`

jdenticon is on CRAN, which I might write about in the future. I was surprised at how easy it was to submit for CRAN review, and am hoping to add a few more packages when I have the time.

If you’re reading this and are curious about using Node.js with R, please reach out!

Footnotes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon ↩︎
These identicons are visual representations of my family’s names, including our pets Mango, Phil, and Donut. :)↩︎