[R] R, S, S-Plus, whence comes thy name?

[John Sorkin]

Thank you.
John

John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
Baltimore VA Medical Center GRECC,
University of Maryland School of Medicine Claude D. Pepper OAIC,
University of Maryland Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, and
Baltimore VA Center Stroke of Excellence

University of Maryland School of Medicine
Division of Gerontology
Baltimore VA Medical Center
10 North Greene Street
GRECC (BT/18/GR)
Baltimore, MD 21201-1524

(Phone) 410-605-7119
(Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing)
jsorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu

>>> Ted Harding <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk> 3/26/2010 10:03 AM >>>
On 26-Mar-10 12:30:37, John Sorkin wrote:
> I appeal to those entrusted with the keeping of the R flame,
> the S flame, and the S-Plus flame to relate a bit of history.
> How did S, S-Plus, and R get their names? Going from S to S-Plus
> appears clear, a commercial company purchased rights to S,
> developed a product that they wanted to indicate was related to S,
> but was more fully developed. This leaves me with only a rumor
> how S got its original name and how R got its name. Some sources
> suggest that R is named after Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka the
> titans who gave birth to R. The origin of the name S is less clear.
> Citations would be appreciated, so to would statements from the
> titans from the days of yore. 
> Thank you,
> John

For S, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language)

I have the 1984 book "S: An Interactive Environment for Data
Analysis and Graphics" by Ricjard A. Becker and John M. Chambers,
and have looked through its Preface, Contents and Index without
finding anything that points to how the name "S" was chosen.
However, it has always been my memory that "S" was chosen because
it stood for "Statistics". The additional reference in the Wikipedia
article to the "C" language reflects a typical pun-ridden Bell Labs
environment. In the beginning was BCPL, developed at Cambridge (UK)
in the 1960s. When Unix started to be developed at Bell Labs in the
late 1960s, Ken Thompson developed the "B" (being a stripped-down
version of "BCPL") language; though I'm sure he was aware that "B"
also stood for "Bell". Then Thompson and Ritchie, needing a better
language for Unix in the early 1970s, developed "B" into "New B"
(?"newbie"?), and then into C.

So "C" could be seen also as the natural (alphabetical) successor
to "B".

As to R and S, we have a FAQ about it:
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Why-is-R-named-R_003f 
"2.12 Why is R named R?
The name is partly based on the (first) names of the first two R
authors (Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka), and partly a play on
the name of the Bell Labs language `S' (see What is S?)."

This leads you on to the FAQ:
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#What-is-S_003f 
"What is S?"
which doea not, however, say anything about why S is called "S".

But it finally leads you to:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/departments/sia/S/history.html 
where you can find (on what must be the most authoritative basis):

"Did you notice a certain uncertainty about what to call the thing?
We started out with System, then added Language, then switched to
Environment; with the next version, we would switch back to Language
and drop System. We were sure, however, that we wanted to avoid the P
word: S was not to be considered a statistical package in the usual
sense of the term."

But it gives no reason for the choice of "S". So, authoritatively,
we are left with an enigma. Which is probably what they intended.

Ted.

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Date: 26-Mar-10                                       Time: 14:03:19
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