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The “R” Statistical Package. Naomi Altman Dept. of Statistics PSU. What is R?. R is a “freeware” version of the S or Splus package. R is available on Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux. R follows the “toolbox” philosophy – provide the tools and components and let the users build the machines.
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The “R” Statistical Package Naomi Altman Dept. of Statistics PSU
What is R? R is a “freeware” version of the S or Splus package. R is available on Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux. R follows the “toolbox” philosophy – provide the tools and components and let the users build the machines. Currently, R has lots of built-in “machines” (i.e. statistical methods) and many developers contributing free software – in particular, genomics, proteomics and spatial software.
R vs SAS, Minitab and others Strengths of R • Good algorithms • User community with listserv • Very extensible – open source • Excellent graphics • Lots of contributed special purpose software (e.g. bioinformatics, spatial statistics …) Weaknesses of R • “Hacker-friendly” • Documentation is scattered • User-contributed software can be idiosyncratic • Very slow • Poor memory management
Installing R Click on the appropriate platform. On Windows: Download the .exe file. (Note that for some packages you may want an older version.) Run the .exe file from the start menu.
Summary R is easy to: • obtain • install • extend The learning curve is long. R is slow compared to platforms like Perl, C++, etc.