R is widely known as a programming language used for the purpose of scientific research, data analytics, and statistical computing. You might have heard about the R language or R program, but why do you use R language for your project? This R language tutorial will provide more information for you. Read on and find out!

Why R language program?

First and foremost, we need to look at the characteristics of this language in order to understand why it is widely used. 

R is open-source and free

It’s free to download R because this language is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Besides, you can use most R packages under the same license without worrying about legal stuff, even when you want to create commercial applications.

R’s popularity keeps increasing

R language is among the world’s most popular ones when it comes to app development. Because it is a domain-specific language, the fact that it is popular in the market is something phenomenal. We are so used to general-purpose languages like C#, and the increased usage of R language software has shown that the market is having more interest in Data Science and Machine Learning.

R runs on all platforms

Similar to other cross-platform languages, R works well on all popular platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac. Once you write R code on one platform, it can easily be ported to another without any problems. This is a very crucial feature to have in today’s computing world. The benefits of having your apps run on all systems and platforms are undeniable. That’s why companies and businesses are taking advantage of it as they look for using cross-platform languages like R language. 

Learning R will be beneficial for new developers

When the demand for software development and app development is increasing, learning to become a developer will make it easy to find a job. The salary for developers around the world is higher than the average, making this a potential career. 

With that said, knowing how to write programs in different languages, especially R language will be an advantage for any developers. Not only that, it will make your profile stand out from the crowd.

R is being used by the huge tech giants around the world

R language is adopted by big tech companies, making it a potential programming language. Some companies that use the R language include Twitter, Microsoft, Google, etc…

Is it easy to learn R programming?

It depends! For those who want to do data analysis, R is the right language for it. That’s why most researchers learn R as their first language.

Besides, R programming is simple enough to learn. So even if you don’t have excellent coding skills or programming knowledge, you can still do it fine with the R language.

However, for those who are so used to Java or Python, it can be confusing to get to know R. The main reason is because of its syntax which is a bit different from other common programming languages.

Applications of R programming

There have been plenty of applications of R programming over the years. Below are the most popular applications:

Data Science

Data scientist is described as the “sexiest job” and the “best job” in this century. Therefore, if you are into data science and you are actually good at it, you will have a great career. This is a field that will keep developing in the future. 

To become a data scientist, you need to have good computer programming skills. That means you need to learn programming languages like R. Not only does R language allow you to collect data in real-time, but it also helps you perform statistical and predictive analysis. As a result, you can create visualizations and actionable results for customers. 

In fact, if you are taking a course on data science, it’s very likely that you will learn the R language in that course.

Statistical computing

When it comes to statistical computing, R programming is a preferred tool. R has thousands of packages with all statistical functions needed. In addition, R’s syntax is expressive, which allows researchers to import, clean, and analyze data quickly from many different data sources.

Besides, the charting capabilities of R let you plot data and create interesting visualizations from any dataset.

Machine learning

One of the most common uses of R is in machine learning and predictive analytics. R comes with different packages for common ML tasks such as decision trees, linear and non-linear regression, classification, and more. R has been widely used to implement machine learning algorithms in various fields such as marketing, finance, retail, genetics research, and health care, etc…

If you are interested in the R language, you should learn to use it properly. Having knowledge about the R language or R programming will be beneficial for your career and business.