Hmm what do you mean about the types being different? My experience was exactly the opposite -- first time I saw R syntax (actually, it was S-Plus back then...

Hmm what do you mean about the types being different? My experience was exactly the opposite -- first time I saw R syntax (actually, it was S-Plus back then...) , I thought it was the most intuitive and powerful system I've ever seen -- this was after fairly extensive experience in C and C++, as well as a few others. Now, I don't quite think so any more, because there are many rather tricky things buried under the surface (e.g. how many people really understand how exactly environments work?) -- but the majority of R programmers will never have to deal with them in their code... Also, I have definitely done general-purpose coding in R -- for a lot of things it is completely adequate. Python has more general-purpose functions and libraries of course, similarly to how R has more statistical ones.