R Workshop: Background
(Some parts of this document have been borrowed from the
R FAQ).
What is R?
R is a statistics package,
or a statistics environment,
It is a command-line package,
in a similar way that MATLAB is command-line driven,
unlike many popular statistics packages.
R is based on the S langauge,
a very high level language and an environment for data analysis and graphics.
In 1998,
the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) presented its
Software System Award to John M. Chambers,
the principal designer of S,
for
- the S system,
which has forever altered the way people analyze, visualize, and manipulate data ...
- S is an elegant, widely accepted, and enduring software system,
with conceptual integrity, thanks to the insight, taste, and effort of John
Chambers.
The two main expression of the S language are:
- S-Plus, a commerical (and often expensive) implementation of S; and
- R, an free, Open Source implementation of S.
What are the differences between S-Plus and R?
Since both S-Plus and R are implementations of S,
they are very similar.
There are some differences, however:
- S-Plus is commercial; R is free and Open Source.
- There are a few
differences in the language also.
- S-Plus has a fancier gui.
- S-Plus often has fancier graphics capabilities.
- R has some useful functions not found in S-Plus (such as adding Greek letters to plots).
Likewise, S-Plus has some functionality not found in R.
- S-Plus has many (additional cost) add-ons that extend its functionality
beyond R.
- R is available "out of the box" on a wide variety of UNIX platforms and similar systems
(including FreeBSD and Linux).
It also compiles and runs on Windows and MacOS.
In contrast,
S-Plus is available for Windows and some flavours of Linux, but not MacOS.
The functionality of R is growing rapidly,
and for most purposes they can be considered together apart from the interface.
Low-level users might never notice the differences.
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