Hi,
I got the following comment from the reviewer of a paper (describing an
algorithm implemented in R) that I submitted to BMC Bioinformatics:
"Finally, which useful for exploratory work and some prototyping,
neither R nor S-Plus are appropriate environments for deploying user
applications that would receive much use."
I can certainly respond by pointing out that CRAN contains more than
2000 packages and Bioconductor contains more than 350. However, does
anyone have statistics on how often R (and possibly some R packages) are
downloaded, or on how many people actually use R?
Thanks,
Kevin
On Thu, 19 Nov 2009, Kevin R. Coombes wrote:> Hi, > > I got the following comment from the reviewer of a paper (describing an > algorithm implemented in R) that I submitted to BMC Bioinformatics: > > "Finally, which useful for exploratory work and some prototyping, neither R > nor S-Plus are appropriate environments for deploying user applications that > would receive much use."The reviewer needs to get out more... "Intel Capital has placed the number of R users at 1 million, and Revolution kicks the estimate all the way up to 2 million." from the New York Times Business Innovation Technology Blog http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/r-you-ready-for-r/ which follows up on this article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html in their printed paper. Did the reviewer notice where that article said: "Companies as diverse as Google, Pfizer, Merck, Bank of America, the InterContinental Hotels Group and Shell use it." ??? <sarcasm> Yeah, Google and those other companies just don't have much ken for muscular computing. ;-) </sarcasm> <more sarcasm> Maybe you should retool in Visual Basic. </more sarcasm> HTH, Chuck> > I can certainly respond by pointing out that CRAN contains more than 2000 > packages and Bioconductor contains more than 350. However, does anyone have > statistics on how often R (and possibly some R packages) are downloaded, or > on how many people actually use R? > > Thanks, > Kevin > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > >Charles C. Berry (858) 534-2098 Dept of Family/Preventive Medicine E mailto:cberry at tajo.ucsd.edu UC San Diego http://famprevmed.ucsd.edu/faculty/cberry/ La Jolla, San Diego 92093-0901
Hi Kevin,
What a surprising comment from a reviewer for BMC Bioinformatics.
I just did a PubMed search for "limma" and
"aroma.affymetrix",
just two methods for which I use R software regularly.
"limma" yields 28 hits, several of which are published
in BMC Bioinformatics. Bengtsson's aroma.affymetrix paper
"Estimation and assessment of raw copy numbers at the single locus
level."
is already cited by 6 others.
It almost seems too easy to work up lists of usage of R packages.
Spotfire is an application built around S-Plus that has widespread use
in the biopharmaceutical industry at a minimum. Vivek Ranadive's
TIBCO company just purchased Insightful, the S-Plus company.
(They bought Spotfire previously.)
Mr. Ranadive does not spend money on environments that are
not appropriate for deploying applications.
You could easily cull a list of corporation names from the
various R email listservs as well.
Press back with the reviewer. Reviewers can learn new things
and will respond to arguments with good evidence behind them.
Good luck!
Steven McKinney
________________________________________
From: r-devel-bounces at r-project.org [r-devel-bounces at r-project.org] On
Behalf Of Kevin R. Coombes [krcoombes at mdacc.tmc.edu]
Sent: November 19, 2009 10:47 AM
To: r-devel at r-project.org
Subject: [Rd] R Usage Statistics
Hi,
I got the following comment from the reviewer of a paper (describing an
algorithm implemented in R) that I submitted to BMC Bioinformatics:
"Finally, which useful for exploratory work and some prototyping,
neither R nor S-Plus are appropriate environments for deploying user
applications that would receive much use."
I can certainly respond by pointing out that CRAN contains more than
2000 packages and Bioconductor contains more than 350. However, does
anyone have statistics on how often R (and possibly some R packages) are
downloaded, or on how many people actually use R?
Thanks,
Kevin
______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
At 18:47 19/11/2009, Kevin R. Coombes wrote:>Hi, > >I got the following comment from the reviewer of a paper (describing >an algorithm implemented in R) that I submitted to BMC Bioinformatics: > >"Finally, which useful for exploratory work and some prototyping, >neither R nor S-Plus are appropriate environments for deploying user >applications that would receive much use." > >I can certainly respond by pointing out that CRAN contains more than >2000 packages and Bioconductor contains more than 350. However, does >anyone have statistics on how often R (and possibly some R packages) >are downloaded, or on how many people actually use R?Another point you could make is that BMC supports open access publishing so that anyone in the world with an Internet connection can download the results of research free gratis and for nothing, something especially valuable to residents of resource poor countries. Consistent with that would be support for the use of methods which anyone can reproduce without having to buy a licence.>Thanks, > Kevin > >______________________________________________ >R-devel at r-project.org mailing list >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-develMichael Dewey http://www.aghmed.fsnet.co.uk