Amen. I've been using R since ~2000, and it's a terrible hack of a language. The syntax is quirky, the speed is underwhelming, and the memory usage makes it un

Amen. I've been using R since ~2000, and it's a terrible hack of a language. The syntax is quirky, the speed is underwhelming, and the memory usage makes it unsuitable for all but the smallest data analysis problems. It's a programming language designed by people who don't really know how to program. ...but if you know it, it lets you tap into this huge collection of statistical libraries with relatively little effort. So you're right: most people are using it as a glorified graphing calculator. But given that the alternative is (usually) implementing complicated, error-prone algorithms in another language, I'm still glad it exists.