[R] Interesting remarks about R back in 1999

[francogrex]

Hi, this is not an R-help post, but I found this extract below that was
written by a leading mathematician back in 1999 when he was talking about
statistics and computing. I found it interesting to share and I ask your
opinion do you think this still holds today or things have changed? Thanks.

“...we would also like to mention that in our opinion Mathematica provides
an excellent and indeed unparalleled environment for mathematical
statistical research. In comparison, no other computing environment provides
such high quality capabilities simultaneously in: symbolics, numerics,
graphics, typesetting and programming. Typically most researchers need to
develop some code to implement their methods. Often the researcher’s code
will only be executed a few times and the researcher’s main consideration is
his time and effort as opposed to producing an cpu-efficient stand-alone
software product. The importance of a powerful user-oriented programming
language for researchers is sometimes lacking in other environment.
…comments have been made by research statisticians on the ease of
programming in S and Splus as opposed to SAS. If the programming language is
a natural extension of mathematical notation, this translates into ease and
speed of development. This was found to be true in the past with APL, Splus
and XLISP-STAT. We have found that Mathematica provides even more
capability. However, for advanced state-of-the-art research and teaching in
applied statistics and data analysis, R, Splus or XLISP-STAT may still be
advantageous due to the wide usage by many leading researchers and the high
quality functions for standard and advanced statistical methods that are
available in the associated infrastructure (Statlib 1999). Furthermore, R
and XLISPSTAT are freeware. However from the educational viewpoint, this
advantage may not be so important since many students and researchers like
to understand the principles involved. With Mathematica it is as easy to
write out the necessary functions in Mathematica notation as it would be to
explain the procedures in a traditional mathematical notation. In summary,
Mathematica’s superior programming language is, in our opinion, one of its
key strengths and advantages.”

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