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> Heck, R isn't really that accessible to most programmers either. R is objectively a bad programming language. However, it is by no means inaccessible. I have
by catnaroek 8y ago
> Heck, R isn't really that accessible to most programmers either.
R is objectively a bad programming language. However, it is by no means inaccessible. I have no statistics background whatsoever, and I managed to learn enough R to be dangerous in a mere week. Other than the 1-based indexing and the utterly disgusting dynamic dispatch mechanism (you could simply not to use the latter), R is surprisingly pleasant to use. What I enjoyed the most is that vectors and matrices are first-class values, not objects that are referred to through pointers. It's probably copy-on-write under the hood, but I don't need to care. Hallelujah!
- singingfish 8y agoIt's not really an objectively bad language, it's just heavily optimised for one thing - the types of linear algebra calculations used for statistical analysis. For everything else (i.e. as a general purpose programming languate) it's awful. Which is why many languages have R bridges, so you can do the grunt work somewhere less insane.
- catnaroek 8y agoNo, R is objectively bad. There is nothing about linear algebra or statistics (which, btw, are not the only things R can do well) that mandates 1-based indices, or dynamic dispatch by appending class names to method names, or the various ways in which variables can be manipulated non-lexically for metaprogramming's sake. In particular, the the last feature is very powerful, but makes it impossible to prove anything about R scripts. Thank goodness trial and error in R produces less baffling results than in Python. At most you get the wrong value, noy “WTF is this nonsense? Why is this function mutating that remote object that it has no business touching?”.