R Programming Language

Introduction:

The R Language stands out as a powerful tool in the modern era of statistical
computing and data analysis. Widely embraced by statisticians, data
scientists, and researchers, the R Language offers an extensive suite of
packages and libraries tailored for data manipulation, statistical modeling,
and visualization. In this article, we explore the features, benefits, and
applications of the R Programming Language, shedding light on why it has
become an indispensable asset for data-driven professionals across various
industries.

R programming language is an implementation of the S programming

language. It also combines with lexical scoping semantics inspired by
Scheme. Moreover, the project was conceived in 1992, with an initial version
released in 1995 and a stable beta version in 2000.
What is R Programming Language?

R programming is a leading tool for machine learning, statistics, and data

analysis, allowing for the easy creation of objects, functions, and packages.
Designed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the University of Auckland
and developed by the R Development Core Team, R Language is platform-
independent and open-source, making it accessible for use across all
operating systems without licensing costs. Beyond its capabilities as a
statistical package, R integrates with other languages like C and C++,
facilitating interaction with various data sources and statistical tools. With a
growing community of users and high demand in the Data Science job
market, R is one of the most sought-after programming languages today.
Originating as an implementation of the S programming language with
influences from Scheme, R has evolved since its conception in 1992, with its
first stable beta version released in 2000.

Why Use R Language?

The R Language is a powerful tool widely used for data analysis, statistical
computing, and machine learning. Here are several reasons why
professionals across various fields prefer R:

1. Comprehensive Statistical Analysis:

R language is specifically designed for statistical analysis and provides a vast

array of statistical techniques and tests, making it ideal for data-driven
research.

2. Extensive Packages and Libraries:

The R Language boasts a rich ecosystem of packages and libraries that

extend its capabilities, allowing users to perform advanced data
manipulation, visualization, and machine learning tasks with ease.

3. Strong Data Visualization Capabilities:

R language excels in data visualization, offering powerful tools like ggplot2

and plotly, which enable the creation of detailed and aesthetically pleasing
graphs and plots.
4. Open Source and Free:

As an open-source language, R is free to use, which makes it accessible to

everyone, from individual researchers to large organizations, without the
need for costly licenses.

5. Platform Independence:

The R Language is platform-independent, meaning it can run on various

operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing
flexibility in development environments.

6. Integration with Other Languages:

R can easily integrate with other programming languages such as C, C++,

Python, and Java, allowing for seamless interaction with different data
sources and statistical packages.

7. Growing Community and Support:

R language has a large and active community of users and developers who
contribute to its continuous improvement and provide extensive support
through forums, mailing lists, and online resources.

8. High Demand in Data Science:

R is one of the most requested programming languages in the Data Science

job market, making it a valuable skill for professionals looking to advance
their careers in this field.

Features of R Programming Language

The R Language is renowned for its extensive features that make it a

powerful tool for data analysis, statistical computing, and visualization. Here
are some of the key features of R:

1. Comprehensive Statistical Analysis:

R language provides a wide array of statistical techniques, including linear

and nonlinear modeling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis,
classification, and clustering.
2. Advanced Data Visualization:

With packages like ggplot2, plotly, and lattice, R excels at creating complex
and aesthetically pleasing data visualizations, including plots, graphs, and
charts.

3. Extensive Packages and Libraries:

The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) hosts thousands of packages

that extend R’s capabilities in areas such as machine learning, data
manipulation, bioinformatics, and more.

4. Open Source and Free:

R is free to download and use, making it accessible to everyone. Its open-

source nature encourages community contributions and continuous
improvement.

5. Platform Independence:

R is platform-independent, running on various operating systems, including

Windows, macOS, and Linux, which ensures flexibility and ease of use across
different environments.

6. Integration with Other Languages:

R language can integrate with other programming languages such as C, C+

+, Python, Java, and SQL, allowing for seamless interaction with various data
sources and computational processes.

7. Powerful Data Handling and Storage:

R efficiently handles and stores data, supporting various data types and
structures, including vectors, matrices, data frames, and lists.

8. Robust Community and Support:

R has a vibrant and active community that provides extensive support

through forums, mailing lists, and online resources, contributing to its rich
ecosystem of packages and documentation.

9. Interactive Development Environment (IDE):

RStudio, the most popular IDE for R, offers a user-friendly interface with
features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and integrated tools for
plotting, history, and debugging.
10. Reproducible Research:

R supports reproducible research practices with tools like R Markdown and

Knitr, enabling users to create dynamic reports, presentations, and
documents that combine code, text, and visualizations.

Advantages of R language

R is the most comprehensive statistical analysis package. As new technology

and concepts often appear first in R.

As R programming language is an open source. Thus, you can run R

anywhere and at any time.

R programming language is suitable for GNU/Linux and Windows operating

systems.

R programming is cross-platform and runs on any operating system.

In R, everyone is welcome to provide new packages, bug fixes, and code

enhancements.

Disadvantages of R language

In the R programming language, the standard of some packages is less than

perfect.

Although, R commands give little pressure on memory management. So R

programming language may consume all available memory.

In R basically, nobody to complain if something doesn’t work.

R programming language is much slower than other programming languages

such as Python and MATLAB.

Applications of R language

We use R for Data Science. It gives us a broad variety of libraries related to

statistics. It also provides the environment for statistical computing and
design.

R is used by many quantitative analysts as its programming tool. Thus, it

helps in data importing and cleaning.

R is the most prevalent language. So many data analysts and research

programmers use it. Hence, it is used as a fundamental tool for finance.
Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Bing, Twitter, Accenture, Wipro, and
many more using R nowadays.

R vs Python

R Programming Language and Python are both used extensively for Data
Science. Both are very useful and open-source languages as well. For data
analysis, statistical computing, and machine learning Both languages are
strong tools with sizable communities and huge libraries for data science
jobs. A theoretical comparison between R and Python is provided below:

R Programming Language

R Programming Language is used for machine learning algorithms, linear

regression, time series, statistical inference, etc. It was designed by Ross
Ihaka and Robert Gentleman in 1993. R is an open-source programming
language that is widely used as a statistical software and data analysis tool.
R generally comes with the Command-line interface. R is available across
widely used platforms like Windows, Linux, and macOS. Also, the R
programming language is the latest cutting-edge tool.

Python Programming Language

Python is a widely-used general-purpose, high-level programming language.

It was created by Guido van Rossum in 1991 and further developed by the
Python Software Foundation. It was designed with an emphasis on code
readability, and its syntax allows programmers to express their concepts in
fewer lines of code.

Difference between R Programming and Python Programming

Feature R Python

R is a language and
environment for Python is a general-
statistical purpose programming
Introduction programming which language for data
includes statistical analysis and scientific
computing and computing
graphics.

It has many features It can be used to develop

which are useful for GUI applications and web
Objective
statistical analysis applications as well as
and representation. with embedded systems

It has many easy-to- It can easily perform

Workability use packages for matrix computation as
performing tasks well as optimization

Various popular R
Integrated Various popular Python
IDEs are Rstudio,
development IDEs are Spyder,
RKward, R
environment Eclipse+Pydev, Atom, etc.
commander, etc.

There are many Some essential packages

Libraries and packages and libraries and libraries
packages like ggplot2, caret, are Pandas, Numpy, Scipy
etc. , etc.

It is mainly used for It takes a more

Scope complex data analysis streamlined approach for
in data science. data science projects.

Ecosystem in R Programming and Python Programming

Python supports a very large community of general-purpose data science.
One of the most basic uses for data analysis, primarily because of the
fantastic ecosystem of data-centric Python packages. Pandas and NumPy are
one of those packages that make importing and analyzing, and visualization
of data much easier.

R Programming has a rich ecosystem to use in standard machine learning

and data mining techniques. It works in statistical analysis of large datasets,
and it offers a number of different options for exploring data and It makes it
easier to use probability distributions, apply different statistical tests.
Features R Python

It is used for data

It is used in all kinds of
analysts to import
Data collection data formats including
data from Excel, CSV,
SQL tables
and text files.

It optimized for the

You can explore data
Data exploration statistical analysis of
with Pandas
large datasets

It supports Tidyverse
and it became easy to Use can you NumPy,
Data modeling import, manipulate, SciPy, scikit-learn,
visualize, and report TansorFlow
on data

You can use ggplot2

and ggplot tools to
You can use Matplotlib,
Data visualization plots complex scatter
Pandas, Seaborn
plots with regression
lines.

Advantages in R Programming and Python Programming

R Programming Python Programming

It supports a large dataset for General-purpose programming to

statistical analysis use data analyze

Primary users are Programmers

Primary users are Scholar and R&D
and developers

Support packages like pandas,

Support packages like tidyverse,
scipy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow,
ggplot2, caret, zoo
caret

Support RStudio and It has a wide Support Conda environment with

range of statistics and data analysis Spyder, Ipython Notebook
 Disadvantages in R Programming and Python Programming
R Programming Python Programming

R is much more difficult as Python does not have too many

compared to Python because it libraries for data science as
mainly uses for statistics purposes. compared to R.

Python might not be as specialized

R might not be as fast as languages
for statistics and data analysis as R.
like Python, especially for
Some statistical functions and
computationally intensive tasks and
visualization capabilities might be
large-scale data processing.
more streamlined in R.

Memory management in R might

Python visualization capabilities
not be as efficient as in some other
might not be as polished and
languages, which can lead to
streamlined as those offered by R’s
performance issues and memory-
ggplot2.
related errors

Example in R and Python

Program for the addition of two numbers

# Python program to add two numbers

Program:

numb1 = 8
numb2 = 4

# Adding two numbers

sum = numb1 + numb2

# Printing the result

print("The sum is", sum)

Output

The sum is 12
# R program to add two numbers

Program:

numb1 <- 8
numb2 <- 4

# Adding two numbers

sum <- numb1 + numb2

print(paste("The sum is", sum))

Output

The sum is 12