[R] What makes R different from other programming languages?

[Greg Snow]

I think the big unique thing about R is that it is both an interactive
environment and a programming language.  A new user can start it,
enter some data, and compute same basic statics without ever
"programming".  A more advanced user can write their own function to
automate common procedures or implement an new method.  The journey
from user to programmer is smoother that learning a macro language or
API.

Add to that the packages available (which could be programmed in other
languages, but why?) and you have a very useful tool.

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 1:22 PM, johannes rara <johannesraja at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, the audience is mainly Java developers who develop tailored
> software for many domains. I think that they would like to have some
> answers to these kind of questions:
>
> - why should I learn R?
> - what are the specific use cases where one might think of using R?
> - in which area R is good for?
> - how R differ from other programming and scripting languages?
> - etc.
>
> My intention is to convince them so that they will try R on their own,
> and probably in some day start using R in their projects.
>
> Best regards,
> -J
>
> 2012/8/20 R. Michael Weylandt <michael.weylandt at gmail.com>:
>> As a language, there are some nifty things about function arguments:
>> http://blog.moertel.com/articles/2006/01/20/wondrous-oddities-rs-function-call-semantics.
>> Lexical scoping +  first class functions also come to mind.
>>
>> If we are thinking about libraries, graphics:
>> http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/ and look into ggplot2
>> (including the famous facebook world map) and statistical modelling
>> (both base and in contributed packages)
>>
>> What are your developers interested in and we can be more specific?
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 1:02 PM, johannes rara <johannesraja at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> My intention is to give a presentation about R programming language
>>> for software developers. I would like to ask, what are the things that
>>> make R different from other programming languages? What are the
>>> specific cases where Java/C#/Python developer might say "Wow, that was
>>> neat!"? What are the things that are easy in R, but very difficult in
>>> other programming languages (like Java)?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> -J
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.



-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
538280 at gmail.com