Ulrik Stervbo has a performance comparison for for, apply, and map functions in R:
It is usually said, that for– and while-loops should be avoided in R. I was curious about just how the different alternatives compare in terms of speed.
The first loop is perhaps the worst I can think of – the return vector is initialized without type and length so that the memory is constantly being allocated.
The performance of map isn’t great, though the benefits to me are less about performance and more about readability. H/T R-bloggers