R is not so much a statistical software as a mathematical computing environment, because R not only provides some statistical programs, users only need to specify a database and some parameters to conduct a statistical analysis. The idea of R is: it can provide some integrated statistical tools, but more importantly, it can provide various functions of mathematical calculation and statistical calculation, so that users can flexibly analyze data and even create new statistical calculation methods that meet the needs.
The syntax of this language is similar to C on the surface, but it is a variant of functional programming language in semantics, and it has strong compatibility with Lisp and APL. In particular, it allows "linguistic computation". This makes it possible to use expressions as input parameters of functions, which is very useful for statistical simulation and drawing.
R is a free software with UNIX, LINUX, MacOS and WINDOWS versions, which can be downloaded and used for free. There you can download R's installer, various plug-ins and documents. The installation program of R contains only 8 basic modules, and other external modules can be obtained through CRAN.
The source code of R can be downloaded for free, and there are also compiled executable versions that can be downloaded and run on various platforms, including UNIX (including FreeBSD and Linux), Windows and MacOS. R is mainly a command line operation, and some people have developed several graphical user interfaces.
R has built-in statistical and numerical analysis functions. Because of the consanguinity of S, R has stronger object-oriented programming function than other programming languages specially used for statistics or mathematics.
Another strength of R is its drawing function. Drawing has the quality of printing, and mathematical symbols can also be added.
Although R is mainly used for statistical analysis or development of statistical related software, it is also used for matrix calculation. Its analysis speed is comparable to GNU Octave and even commercial software MATLAB.
The function of R can be enhanced by user-written packages. The added functions include special statistical technology, drawing function, programming interface and data output/input function. These software packages are written in R language, LaTeX, Java, the most commonly used C language and Fortran. The downloaded executable version will be accompanied by several software packages with core functions, and there are thousands of different software packages according to CRAN records. Some of them are commonly used, such as econometrics, financial analysis, humanities research and artificial intelligence.