Provide R bindings

[ivan-pi]

There is a MINPACK wrapper for R called minpack.lm.

It might be interesting to check how many times it has been downloaded and how many R packages depend on it.

Having a C interface also makes the task of writing an R wrapper easier. Perhaps we can get in touch with the authors of that package at some point and ask them to use the new maintained version instead.

[ivan-pi]

Just noticed the thread from @Beliavsky at Discourse, https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/gsoc-improve-nonlinear-least-squares-in-r/1735, on the topic of a GSoC'21 project about "Improving Nonlinear Least Squares in R".

The homepage of the GSoC project is here: https://arkab-ds.github.io/GSOC21-improveNLS/

One of their perceived problems is maintainability of the C/Fortran code used to wrap NLS (https://www.netlib.org/port/). NLS is a least squares code developed around the same time as MINPACK. I just found this to be a compelling example of an R project trying to move away from Fortran for various reasons.

Maybe we could coordinate with the R community on a joint GSoC project to "renew" the R MINPACK interface.

[certik]

@ivan-pi do you want to take a lead on this? I think it would be great if we can tap into the R community and collaborate.