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

[Mark Dalphin]

I've read several replies to this question already and they seem to have
missed the one point that most irritated the Java programmers to whom I
tried to teach R. They HATED the "object-oriented" material, both S4 and
especially S3, as it did not match the style of OO programming that had
been pounded into them. The ones I tried to teach hated S3 and S4
methods so much, that some even refused to learn to learn them on the
grounds that they "weren't OO". Now it could easily have been my
approach as I was not well equipped at the time to "compare and
contrast", never the less, I would approach this aspect carefully as the
two approaches are so different.

I guess the other aspect which I take the most time to describe to any
programmer from other more traditional languages is the working with
vectors. To use R effectively, you must move data in large chunks; the
standard paradigm of looping over the data is the fastest way to write a
slow program. I find it takes a good long while for programmers to make
the switch to working with vectors (more than a month of use), but they
grasp the concept quickly and like it.

Cheers,
Mark

johannes rara 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
>
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