The world is filled with programming languages designed for various purposes. Some of them may seem new, but they have been around for decades, and one of them is the programming language known as R. In recent years, R has exploded on the scene to become one of the most used, and things could stay that way for several years to come.
R programming language
R is a programming language and software environment used by statisticians and data miners for statistical computation and graphics. Before doing the steps to dive straight into programming with R, you must first understand what language is and what it does.
- What is the R programming language
- R packages
- What is RStudio
Let’s see this in more detail.
1]What is the R programming language
For those who might wonder, the programming language was created by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman in 1993. Also, note that most R libraries are written using R, but for others, C, C ++ and Fortran are preferred.
From what we’ve gathered, the idea behind R is all about statistical computing. It is mainly used by data miners, statisticians, data analysis, etc. In other words, if you want to generate data quickly and efficiently, then R is the way to go.
In February of this year, R was ranked 13e most widely used programming language in the world. Before that, it was in the top 10, so we can conclude that R is used quite often around the world. In fact, companies like Airbnb, Uber, Facebook and Google all benefit from this language in different ways.
As it stands, R is mainly used for statistical inference, data analysis and machine learning algorithms.
2]R packages
To get the most out of R, the user must take advantage of all the packages he brings to the table. Currently, there are approximately 12,000 packages, and each is stored in CRAN. Now, if you didn’t know, CRAN is both free and open source. The option is there to download one of them to perform statistical tasks.
Some of these packages include the likes of ggplot2, tidyr, tidyverse, XML, data.table, scales, dplyr and much more.
Download R from official site.
3]What is R Studio
If you want to have an easier time using R, then the best option is to download RStudio. With this program is an integrated development environment for R, and it works quite well from our experience. In truth, R and RStudio are different versions of the same thing.
Download RStudio from official site.
You see, if you are new to R, then your best option to learn is to take advantage of what RStudio has to offer. In fact, we are going to list the main reasons why you should use RStudio instead of R if you can.
- Full text editor
- Anchor windows
- Autofill
- Much better user interface
1]Full text editor
One of the main drawbacks of the regular version of R is the fact that it does not have a full text editor. If you want to use syntax highlighting, and much more, you’re out of luck. Having a good text editor makes all the difference when trying to learn a new programming language.
2]Anchor windows
There are times when we have no idea where the text file containing all of our awesome code went. This is because R does not dock windows, but RStudio does. All relevant windows are docked together, making them easier to find compared to using the regular version of R.
3]Autofill
Yes, RStudio has the possibility for the user to automatically complete the texts. Just press the tab key and the tool will try to correct your mistakes. We say try because he doesn’t always make the right decisions, so keep that in mind before you go ahead.
4]Much better user interface
Let’s be honest about it. The regular version of R has a dated user interface, but this is suitable for advanced users who already know what they are doing. Not to mention, the minimalist look ensures eye-catching performance, so no need to invest in a beefy computer.
Despite all this, we still prefer RStudio because it presents a complete list of objects in the panel located at the top right. It’s a useful feature, and we think even advanced users will want to use it.
