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As the article discusses, R has a steep learning curve. Mastering R requires knowing dozens of commands and tricks, but once you learn those the language become
by rm999 14y ago
As the article discusses, R has a steep learning curve. Mastering R requires knowing dozens of commands and tricks, but once you learn those the language becomes very expressive and quick to work with.
I agree it's frustrating. I've been working with R on and off for more than five years and almost exclusively for 1-2 years, and I still need google every ten minutes to remember some esoteric command that is perfect for the problem at hand. In my experience this is still quicker and less error-prone than python, which often requires you to effectively roll out your own solutions for small data processing needs.
- trts 14y agoI'm about where you are at. I struggled with doing things in R for a year or so, while I was initially using it to do some cool graphics that I couldn't elsewhere, following mostly by example. After spending enough time using it, things began to "click" for me, and now I prefer to do most of my work in R. I still struggle sometimes to write nice looking code in R, but I've known people who are pretty good at managing it. If you have to inherit an R program from someone else though, it's almost guaranteed to be a nightmare to comprehend.