[R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language

[Richard Graham]

On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu <liuwensui at gmail.com> wrote:
> from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth
> to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I
> will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will
> prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work.

It seems R would be the language of choice if you require "related to
statistical work".  I would be surprised if any general scripting
language would restrict themselves to statistics.

> if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point
> out a good source for learning as well.

I find Ruby to be the closest language to the way I think about
programming.  It's fully object oriented, dynamically typed,
open-source, free, and runs on just about any platform.  Sophisticated
IDE's are available and it can also run easily from the command line
(like Perl).  Ruby is fun to use.

There are a lot of online Ruby resources and also printed material.
Here are just a few.

Language overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_%28programming_language%29

Main Website:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/

Learning Ruby:
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.3/index.html
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

Give it a try online:
http://tryruby.hobix.com/

Book:
http://www.rubycentral.com/book/
[NB:  This free online book is for Ruby 1.6. Another printed and PDF
book is available for Ruby 1.8]
http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/ruby/index.html

Newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby

> thank you so much!

Your welcome!

> Have a happy holiday.

Thank you, I am.  8-)  I hope everyone is having a nice holiday.

Richard Graham