>>54734584
For statistical analysis

>Is it worth learning?

Not for someone who doesn't see the value or uses of it.

>>54734595
So it sucks?

>>54734584
Had to learn it for a university module. Stay very, very far away from it if you don't want to go into statistics

>>54734584
i use it for financial statistics such as matlab. very useful

>>54734584

>Is it worth learning?

Yes, if you are into statistics.

Programming languages are tools, they are designed for specific tasks.
When will people finally get this?!?


>is cobol worth learning
yes, if you want to maintain software at a bank

>is c worth learning
yes, if you want to write stuff for the linux kernel

>is c++ worth learning
yes, if you want to write games


..and so on.

>>54734898

If I've got a cluster fuck of a report currently generated in Microsoft SQL Reporting Services, will I hate life less if I try to get it moved to R?

>>54734874
>So it sucks?

Why would it suck?

It's very popular and the industry standard FOR WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED FOR.

You clearly have no background in Finance, statistics, econ or anything else even mildly related to it. There is no purpose of you learning to use it.

>>54734584
Because it's good at what it does

If you are into data analysis

Stats PhD here. The Python stack is probably better for the real world or the non-sepcialist but R and the top 20-50 packages are good. RStudio is a pretty slick GUI for a comfy Matlab feel went you are hacking around and don't need to scale up with command line scripts.

There is a lot of esoteric garbage out there written by Assistant Professors looking for tenure. Compare this to Python that doesn't support matrices out of the box and the legacy 2/3 clusterfuck. Industry support has done wonders for both tools in the last 5 years though.