[R] Reasons to Use R

[Wilfred Zegwaard]

As to my knowledge the core of R is considered "adequate" and "good" by
the statisticians. That's sufficient isn't it?
Last year I read some documentation about R and most routines were
considered "good", but "some very bad". That is a benchmark somehow.

There must be some benchmarks you want. R is widely used and there must
be people around who can provide you with the adequate stuff. CRAN is a
way to that, or the project page.

The core is free by the way and you can participate in the development.
People can provide you there with the information you want. R is quite
well documented (not everybody thinks it's well doc'ed, but... you
know... opinions do vary).

There is one simple reason to use R. It's free that's for one. If you
have the money commercial software is sufficient. That doesn't mean that
R is the poor mans software. It works quite well actually (but you...
know... opinions vary, especially about statistical software). I think
that's the usual reason to use it: it works quite well, and it's
documentation is widely available. A LOT of statistical procedures are
available. R crashed about 2 times last year on my computer and that's a
better than SPSS, and there are a lot of user interfaces available which
make working with R easier.
Personally I don't like SPSS, but I do know that the R core is used in
commercial applications. So at least one person has done some benchmarks.

Wilfred