I was chewing through many datasets at the time, so I needed to do automation anyway (which was easier to do in R or PHP/Perl, given my background at the time).

I was chewing through many datasets at the time, so I needed to do automation anyway (which was easier to do in R or PHP/Perl, given my background at the time). Even then, I still produced Excel output (with R scripts in an attached zip) when I wanted to share the final results with my PI and collaborators.