4 ms·

The history of R's predecessor, S, from co-creator Rick Becker [video]

47 points by sndean 10y ago

api_or_ipa 10y ago
Was R named as such because it's one letter before S (and therefore a regression?).
- huac 10y ago
  "The name is partly based on the (first) names of the first two R authors (Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka), and partly a play on the name of the Bell Labs language ‘S’." - R FAQ https://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Why-is-R-named-R_003f https://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Why-is-R-named...
- madcaptenor 10y ago
  I've also heard (uninformed) people speculate that it's called R because r is the standard notation for a correlation coefficient.
nerdponx 10y ago
I had no idea Tukey invented the words "software" and "bit"
joncrane 10y ago
Oh wow. We used "S plus" at one of my previous jobs (and I wouldn't be surprised if they still do) because they had a paid product. This was at a conservative government agency.
- peatmoss 10y ago
  I have a friend at the Census who is, in principle, allowed to use R or Python, but is definitely aware of a strong historic bias for commercial statistical software--SAS mainly. That's the weak form of pro-commercial government bias. The strong form is that there are, I'm told, agencies in which only "certified" statistical software can be used.
  - hatmatrix 10y ago
    Hence the existence of Revolution Analytics (from which this blog is posted).
keithpeter 10y ago
"The story is also coloured with anecdotes from various other luminaries at Bell Labs at the time, including John Tukey (the pioneer of exploratory data analysis and the inventor of the words "software" and "bit"), and Kernighan and Ritchie (who were upstairs designing Unix and the C language at the same time S was being developed)." With Shannon still around(?) that must have been some place to be. Meta: nice to be able to just download the mp4 video for offline playing - no flash player to fiddle with.
paul_milovanov 10y ago
It was named R because the entire language is an error and PHP was already taken.
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't do the programming language flamewar thing here.

47 points by sndean 10y ago

api_or_ipa 10y ago

Was R named as such because it's one letter before S (and therefore a regression?).

huac 10y ago
"The name is partly based on the (first) names of the first two R authors (Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka), and partly a play on the name of the Bell Labs language ‘S’." - R FAQ https://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Why-is-R-named-R_003f https://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Why-is-R-named...
madcaptenor 10y ago
I've also heard (uninformed) people speculate that it's called R because r is the standard notation for a correlation coefficient.

nerdponx 10y ago

I had no idea Tukey invented the words "software" and "bit"

joncrane 10y ago

Oh wow. We used "S plus" at one of my previous jobs (and I wouldn't be surprised if they still do) because they had a paid product. This was at a conservative government agency.

peatmoss 10y ago
I have a friend at the Census who is, in principle, allowed to use R or Python, but is definitely aware of a strong historic bias for commercial statistical software--SAS mainly. That's the weak form of pro-commercial government bias. The strong form is that there are, I'm told, agencies in which only "certified" statistical software can be used.
- hatmatrix 10y ago
  Hence the existence of Revolution Analytics (from which this blog is posted).

keithpeter 10y ago

"The story is also coloured with anecdotes from various other luminaries at Bell Labs at the time, including John Tukey (the pioneer of exploratory data analysis and the inventor of the words "software" and "bit"), and Kernighan and Ritchie (who were upstairs designing Unix and the C language at the same time S was being developed)." With Shannon still around(?) that must have been some place to be. Meta: nice to be able to just download the mp4 video for offline playing - no flash player to fiddle with.

paul_milovanov 10y ago

It was named R because the entire language is an error and PHP was already taken.

dang 10y ago
Please don't do the programming language flamewar thing here.