S Programming (Statistics and Computing)

S is a high-level language for manipulating, analysing and displaying data. It forms the basis Statistics and Computing. Free Preview. © S Programming.
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Introduction to R and RStudio

This allows a collaborative environment where many people around the globe can tweak, modify and improve the software in question. As a result, open-software is upgraded at a faster pace than many other commercial choices. Open software is not limited at all to statistical systems; there are many other fields that have also witnessed the rise of open-source programs: You can, quite easily, find graphics editors, e-mail clients, instant-messaging clients, speech recognition systems or tools for quantum chemistry amongst open-source software lists [9].

Ihaka himself attributed the accomplishments of R to its collaborative nature:. We could have chosen to be commercial, and we would have sold five copies of the software. After its initial development, Ihaka and Gentleman were joined by many other professionals, all volunteers, who contributed to the development of the system. The core team is the group responsible for the latest updates and developments of the software, although they have the aid of thousands of users who report bugs or glitches. The group includes personalities such as Doug Bates, Thomas Lumley, Brian Ripley and John Chambers, one of the original creators of S, among other statisticians and data analysts.

The team founded the R foundation in , a non-profit organization based in Austria, as a means to provide support for the R project and other developments in statistical computing [7]. Actually, the S language is still used to this day, with its last major redesign published in S was purchased in by the Insightful Corporation, which commercializes it in the S-Plus system.

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But S has long since been eclipsed by the rising popularity of its younger brother. It is hard to estimate the number of R users in the world, but Revolution Analytics, creators of an enhanced distribution of R claim the number surpasses 2 million [10]. And despite the fact the software is free and open-source it has gathered some prominent advocates. As avid users of R, we can count companies like Google, who use the software to analyse trends in ad pricing, or Pfizer, where customized packages have been developed to aid in the study of non-clinical trials [5].

Microsoft has recently embraced R as well, using the software to fit forecasting models, tune fraud detection algorithms and improve Azure's server reliability [11]. Even the Xbox brand is using R to improve matchmaking in online gaming.

Created by statisticians for statisticians: How R took the world of statistics by storm

But Microsoft is not only viewing R as a business tool, but also as an investment. Microsoft acquired Revolution Analytics at the beginning of , thus opening a window for a future distribution of Revolution R that uses both the Cloud infrastructure of Microsoft along with its database management suits. Maybe in some years, Microsoft can tackle some of the most notorious disadvantages of R. As you well know, even after almost 20 years since R was introduced to the world, it is still far from perfect.

R is notoriously hard to learn and rather complicated to use for some tasks, due to its intricate syntax. Although R can produce complex analysis few other software can match, sometimes producing simple procedures, like tabulations, can become a cumbersome task. And even after you finally get an output, obtaining print quality results or formatting them requires additional work. As such, some challengers of R have appeared, many of them aiming to fill the gap that R still has: Recently, some Python libraries have extended the analytic capabilities of the system, turning the language into a powerful statistical toolbox.

Open-source software has become more prominent and reliable and, at least in our field, R is partially responsible for that.


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Many of the free alternatives just discussed have a fighting chance to be noticed thanks to R. R has, in some way, changed how we do statistics, by igniting a movement that has resulted in dozens of easily available analytical tools for researchers, everywhere.

BST 140.776 Statistical Computing

Wikipedia — The Free Encyclopedia. Software for Data analysis — Programming with R. Springer, Jun 14, Wikipedia — The Free Encyclopedia https: The New York Times January, http: A Language for Data analysis and Graphics. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics , Volume 5. Number 3, Pages Python Official Website https: Published features on StatisticsViews. Created by statisticians for statisticians: How R took the world of statistics by storm Features Author: Image appears courtesy of ClipArt.

The web itself describes R as simply another implementation of the S engine: Ihaka himself attributed the accomplishments of R to its collaborative nature: Springer, Jun 14, [4] S - Programming Language. Related Topics Methods - General. Classic Problems of Probability. Remember Me Register Now Forgotten password? R is a free and open source software programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. Distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2, R is an easy language to learn and commonly used for developing data analysis and statistical software.

R is designed to allow users to add additional functionality by defining new functions. Much of the system is itself written in the R dialect of the S programming language. Advanced users can write C code to manipulate R objects directly. Today, R is the result of a collaborative effort with contributions from all over the world. The R environment is an integrated suite of software services for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display. R offers effective data handling and storage facility, a suite of operators for calculations on arrays, a collection of intermediate tools for data analysis, graphical facilities for data analysis and display as well as simple and effective programming language called 'S' which includes conditionals, loops, user defined recursive functions and input and output facilities.

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Most programs written in the R programming language are essentially ephemeral, written for a single piece of data analysis. Stay up to date on the latest developments in Internet terminology with a free weekly newsletter from Webopedia. Join to subscribe now. By submitting your information, you agree that webopedia.


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