On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Monica Pisica <pisicandru at
hotmail.com> wrote:>
>
> Hi,
>
> First of all thanks for all the answers .... all were very informative and
helped me shape a better presentation. Although i received lots of emails saying
that installation under Linux / Unix is easy .... still emails asking for help
in installing R itself, or external packages and such crop more often than not
on the list and for this reason i pressumed it is harder to install under Linux
like OS ;-)) Myself i have no experience with it - i work under Windows with all
the good and the bad and the ugly of it and anybody who can "push the
install button" can install under Windows .... you even don't need to
actually know how your Windows operating system works.... but this is digressing
already.
>
> So .... new Pros (some new and some needed emphasis ...)
>
> - R is open source and free (emphasis)
> - very good support form the R help list (emphasis)
> - data maintenances and integration, exploratory analysis, testing
hypothesis
> - model implementation, calibration, application and reproduction /
replication
> - Automation, recycling and ..... batch
> - R facilitates documentation and replication
> - takes full advantage of 64 bit processor
>
> Cons ....
>
> - slow learning curve (yes, it depends on the person who learns it but
still ....)
> - call by value, there are no references (e.g. Java)
I would not really say it lacks references since environments
are largely equivalent. e.g.
f <- function(e = parent.frame()) with(e, x <- x+1)
x <- 3
f()
x # 4
f(.GlobalEnv) # explicitly pass global environment
x # 5
There are also a number of packages that facilitate
this by various approaches, e.g. proto package.
Other pros:
- large growing community
- large number of addons
- runs on PC, Mac, Linux/UNIX
Other cons:
- interpreted - can be slow
- datasets usually must reside in memory - constrains size
- no .Net on Windows (only the older COM interface via addons)
- PC, not web-centric
>
> Also, somebody mentioned 3d graphics .... yes/ no/ maybe .... I saw and
know that there are 3d capabilities in R, but i never really needed them - maybe
in the future ;-) .... 2D maps and graphs are quite sufficient for a very large
amount of work, although i have to recognize that a 3d map / graph can give the
"wow" factor ;-)
>
> Again thanks for all the answers,
>
> Monica
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