R is actually one of the most pure languages out there; it basically says "I have vectors; they can have missing values, be nested, and can have other vectors a

R is actually one of the most pure languages out there; it basically says "I have vectors; they can have missing values, be nested, and can have other vectors as attributes. And I have functions with lexical scoping. Now go and build the rest as you like." So people did this, one better, one worse -- but the core and beautiful stuff here is that all those approaches will work together and just do the job.