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R Throwdown Challenge

Posted by timothy on from the if-you-pirate-it-so-much-the-better dept.

theodp (442580) writes "'R beats Python!' screams the headline at Prof. Norm Matloff's Mad (Data) Scientist blog. 'R beats Julia! Anyone else wanna challenge R?' Not that he has anything against Python, Matloff adds, but he just doesn't believe that Python or Julia will become 'the new R' anytime soon, or ever. Why? 'R is written by statisticians, for statisticians,' explains Matloff. 'It matters. An Argentinian chef, say, who wants to make Japanese sushi may get all the ingredients right, but likely it just won't work out quite the same. Similarly, a Pythonista could certainly cook up some code for some statistical procedure by reading a statistics book, but it wouldn't be quite same. It would likely be missing some things of interest to the practicing statistician. And R is Statistically Correct.'"

3 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Can't use it by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nothing with a name that verbose can possibly be any good.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  2. Hard to believe in these figures by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Funny

    And R is Statistically Correct.

    I don't see any margin of error. This claim is scientifically worthless.

  3. A joke on the subject by kav2k · · Score: 4, Funny

    A joke I've read recently:

    I'm not sure if "R is written by statisticians, for statisticians" is a good thing e.g. "stadiums are built by footballers, for footballers"