Description #
R is a programming language and environment designed for statistical computing, data analysis, and graphical visualization. It’s widely used in academia, research, and data science due to its powerful packages, community support, and ease of prototyping.
History #
R was created in the early 1990s by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. It was developed as an open-source alternative to the proprietary S language from Bell Labs. Over the years, R became one of the most popular languages for data science, machine learning, and academic research.
Key milestones:
- First released in 1993
- Gained CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) in 1997
- Became a core tool for statistical computing in research
- Integral to fields like epidemiology, economics, and data journalism
Hello World Code #
print("Hello, World!")
How to Run #
In R Console or RStudio: #
- Install R from https://cran.r-project.org
- Open R or RStudio
- Type:
print("Hello, World!")
Try Online: #
- Use Deepnote
Key Concepts #
print()— outputs text or objects- Vectorized operations for efficiency
- Built-in functions for statistics and math
- Data types: vectors, lists, data frames, matrices
- Functional programming features
- CRAN – thousands of user-contributed packages
- Powerful plotting with
ggplot2andplot() - Scripting files end with
.R - IDE support with RStudio
- Used for regression, hypothesis testing, data wrangling
Try It Online #
🔗 Google Colab with R Kernel
🔗 Deepnote – R Notebooks
Fun Facts #
- R is named after its creators: Ross and Robert
- The
ggplot2package made R famous for beautiful charts - RStudio is the most popular R IDE worldwide
- The R mascot is a blue R logo with a shadow
- R is often used in epidemiology, including pandemic modeling
