FI - Fast distance between points in r-devel

[TimTaylor]

As of r-devel/r-svn@c3781e8, the performance of {sf} in the Fast distance between points comparison will be improved. It will likely still not be as fast as {Rfast} but the gap should be closer (for that particular example at least).

@edzer - FI.

[TimTaylor]

R 4.3.2 timings (top is {sf} bottom is {Rfast}):

   user  system elapsed 
  0.909   0.612   1.524 
   user  system elapsed 
  0.120   0.120   0.242 

R-devel (2024-01-28 r85838) timings:

   user  system elapsed 
  0.382   0.245   0.631 
   user  system elapsed 
  0.115   0.118   0.235 

[kadyb]

Great to see this improvement and congratulations on getting the patch accepted!

[kadyb]

I updated the results using the new R 4.4.0.