R Programming Language
Table of Contents
What is R Programming Language?
An open-source programming language, formulated by two professors, Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka, in 1993 and developed by the R Development team, was released in 1995. This programming language is used on various platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, etc., for statistical computing and graphical presentation. One of the most important functions of the R language is data visualization and analysis. The R language is an open-source and free language that is released under the General Public License (GPL) project. The open source nature means anyone can utilize, modify, and distribute the software as per their requirements.
The name “R” is derived from the initials of its two developers, Robert and Ross. The R language is instrumental in classifications, non-linear modeling, linear modeling, classical statistics, and more. Due to its unique and robust features, it has gained popularity in academic circles. Additionally, its availability for free download from the Free Software Foundation contributes to its widespread use. Users adopt the R language to read data, load it, implement operations, and even create their own functions. Another useful and famous feature of R is looping, which allows users to perform actions repeatedly, such as extracting samples from large datasets.
This is the premier language for data analysis and statistical computing. Its rising popularity can be attributed to several factors. Data scientists, researchers, and statisticians are drawn to it due to its extensive package ecosystem, robust data manipulation capabilities, strong community support, and powerful visualization tools.”
Why Choose the R Language?
One might wonder why they should use the R language. Well, here are some benefits:
- Free of cost and open-source: R programing language is an open source that means it is free of cost, you can easily installed as well update it on your system. The other main reason is you don’t ha0ve to buy any license mandatory as well you can shared out and buy it again.
- It boasts an extensive community: R language has a very huge number of active community such as numbers of Data Scientists, Developers & Coders. Whenever you need any help you can take it from R, because as you now they have numbers of community that work together. So, you can take any idea with other professionals.
- It is platform-independent: In a number of operating system, R has the capacity to run in numbers of these operating system with the identification of software and hardware. You can observe or had observed somewhere that some language like R or Window, Linux, Mac can run properly on the operating systems. and also capable to import the data from MySQL, Microsoft Excel & SQLite.
- Incorporates cutting-edge technology.
- Segregated from other languages: R language is segregated from other language
- A trending language: As you have seen the image in the above article that how R language is utilizing in several industries such as healthcare, insurance, academic etc. the other reason of becoming popular of R language is, it has many community as Data scientists, Developers and Coders. So, everyone wants to learn R because in any industry you are struck in any problem you can take help from them.
- A vast resource for data science, machine learning, data visualization, and data analysis.
Features of R Programming:
- Data Analysis: R offers a vast collection of tools for data analysis. R programming language is best for data analysis. As we know many data scientists are involved in R language so this is the best programming language in terms of data analysis.
- Data Visualization: It provides robust visualization capabilities through packages like base graphics and lattice, enabling users to create graphs and charts.
- Open Source: R is freely available for installation as an open-source platform.
- Community: With a vast community of data analysts, statisticians, and researchers, it fosters a rich ecosystem of packages.
- Data Manipulation: R is a reliable source for various data manipulation tools, including transformation, filtering, summarization, and data cleaning practices.
Industries Using R Language
R language finds applications in numerous industries, including eRtail, Education (Edtech), Fintech, manufacturing, healthcare, data journalism, social media, and more.
Image credit: https://www.guru99.com/r-programming-introduction-basics.html
With a glance at the image above, you will gain an understanding of how R language is being used in various industries. Every sector, including academia, healthcare, government, and insurance, utilizes the R language. Although this data or report is from the year 2017, you can still observe the impact R language has had on multiple industries.
Comparison Between R and Python
Let’s look at the comparison between two popular language that is R and Python.
| S.No. | R | Python |
| 01 | R language is used for data visualization. | It is used for deep learning. |
| 02 | The important package and library of R is tidyverse,ggplot2,etc. | The important package & library are pandas,numpy, Tensor-flow etc. |
| 03 | The objective of R is analysis of data as well statistical modeling. | Python objective is web development & in data science. |
| 04 | It is formulated for statistical and mathematical computing. | It is created for basis purpose of programming language with the function of code readability. |
| 05 | It is open source and free. | It is also free and open source language. |
Conclusion
As we know, there are numerous programming languages available in the market. If you want to become a programmer or developer and are confused about which is the best language to learn to brighten your career, R language is one of the best and trending languages, alongside Python, Java, C++, and others. You can choose R language fearlessly; it will undoubtedly help you in your career.
