A mixture of array and functional paradigms; writing efficient code in R requires basically the same type of thinking like in APL or J/Q/K and friends. Historic

A mixture of array and functional paradigms; writing efficient code in R requires basically the same type of thinking like in APL or J/Q/K and friends. Historically, R is a sort of a Scheme-based implementation of S, an earlier language which was basically a mixture of APL and Fortran that a statistician would use (i.e. not get discouraged by a bizarre syntax or for-pyramids). Syntax is probably an effect of the fact that both C and S were co-evolving in the same institution.