I think this is one of the reasons why all those blog posts about Python going to replace R are just plain wrong. R really has a unqiue community, and R-Ladies

I think this is one of the reasons why all those blog posts about Python going to replace R are just plain wrong. R really has a unqiue community, and R-Ladies plays a big part in it. But i think it's also the fact that R is not seen a traditional software engineering language, and that makes it a lot more accessible for people that would be scared away by a regular programming language like Python. Which does not take anything away from Python trying and generally succeeding in being as approachable as possible.