Enterprise technologists supporting data scientists and statisticians have no doubt heard of R. But what is it really?
With this post we are starting a series that will take you from an introduction to a tutorial that shows you how to download R to an ability to run a sample program. With just a few minutes time you will be able to learn enough to know more about what many of your users are looking for.
First, why do we stats professionals like R? We find it easy to learn but very powerful to leverage against statistical analysis problems. Stats professionals can easily learn how to create graphics with statistical data, both 2D and 3D models. For us, coding in R is very easy compared to other programs.
So what exactly is R?
R is a system of statistical computation and graphics, in short. The techniques we can use in R can help us analyze statistical data and create linear/non-linear models, as well as 3D graphics of data that would otherwise lose dimensional worth when constructed in a 2D chart.
The program comes with its own packages, created by many people over the years. These are downloaded at the users convenience, and are completely free. Once downloaded, the user would not have to worry about downloading every time they boot up R.
R is also able to be linked to C, C++ and Fortran code and called at run time.
For more information, check out their About page at http://www.r-project.org/about.html or their FAQ page at http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html
Our next post in this series will give you a step by step guide to getting R running on your own system.
