I may be biased, but in my opinion, one of the most useful features of resource functions is the ability to easily save a function (including necessary dependent functions) for later use. For example, I just recently wrote this function AssociateToNested:
In[1]:= AssociateToNested[a, {"a", "b"} -> 1]
In[2]:= a
Out[2]= <|"a" -> <|"b" -> 1|>|>
In[3]:= AssociateToNested[a, {{"a", "c", "d"} -> f[x], "b" :> 1 + 1}]
In[4]:= a
Out[4]= <|"a" -> <|"b" -> 1, "c" -> <|"d" -> f[x]|>|>, "b" :> 1 + 1|>
I used to save my personal functions in an auto loading paclet on my machine, but these days I’ve found it to be much easier to just store them as resource functions. For example, this deploys it on my local machine:
In[5]:= LocalCache @ DefineResourceFunction @ AssociateToNested
Out[5]= LocalObject["file:///C:/Users/rhennigan/AppData/Roaming/Wolfram/Objects/49c7018f-75f7-4e51-b37b-ca75bced73bd"]
I didn’t have to track down all the code I wrote in my notebook and copy and paste it into a separate package. The function is now usable any time on my machine automagically even after quitting the kernel:
In[6]:= Quit[]
In[1]:= ResourceFunction["AssociateToNested"][a, {"a", "b"} -> x]
In[2]:= a
Out[2]= <|"a" -> <|"b" -> x|>|>
Similarly, I can save functions to my cloud account with:
In[1]:= CloudDeploy[ DefineResourceFunction @ AssociateToNested,
"ResourceFunctions/AssociateToNested",
Permissions -> "Public"
]
Out[1]= CloudObject["https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/rhennigan/ResourceFunctions/AssociateToNested"]
Since I gave it public permissions, now anyone can access and use it with:
ResourceFunction["user:rhennigan/ResourceFunctions/AssociateToNested"]
I think some people might look at some of the well-documented functions on the public Wolfram Function Repository and think the process of creating a ResourceFunction might be a daunting task, but for your personal function deployments you don’t need any documentation at all.
As a bonus example, one of the best resource functions ever created can’t be found on the Wolfram Function Repository: https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/rhennigan/DeployedResources/Function/BirdPeek
