> Unfortunately, the rethinking package which is a major component of the book itself depends on the V8 engine for some reason.<p>This is my fault, in a sense. In order to get the new Stan compiler (written in OCaml) distributed via CRAN (which requires everything to be built from source on its antiquated build servers), we decided to use js_of_ocaml to translate the OCaml compiler into javascript. See this thread for more details: <a href="https://discourse.mc-stan.org/t/a-javascript-stanc3/11044" rel="nofollow">https://discourse.mc-stan.org/t/a-javascript-stanc3/11044</a><p>When I posted that, I didn't really think we would end up using it.
FYI, this is Part 2 of a series. Author mentions several times you need to read Part 1 to understand his objectives and rationales in Part 2. Having skimmed Part 2 before Part 1, I concur.<p>Part 1: <a href="https://rgoswami.me/posts/nix-r-devtools/" rel="nofollow">https://rgoswami.me/posts/nix-r-devtools/</a>
This looks like a lot of work for something that could probably easily get done with a simple docker container. It's probably a great exercise and example for Nix, but otherwise, looks like a "nix hammer" thing.
Statistical Rethinking is a great book though :)