R is a branch of S language widely used in the field of statistics, which was born around 1980. It can be considered that R is an implementation of S language. S language is composed of at&; An explanatory language developed by Bell Laboratories for data exploration, statistical analysis and drawing. The original version of S language was mainly S-PLUS. S-PLUS is a commercial software, which is based on S language and further improved by the statistical science department of MathSoft Company. Later, Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka of Auckland University in New Zealand and other volunteers developed an R system.

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.

Extended data:

R can be regarded as Bell Laboratories (AT & amp； An S language developed by RickBecker, JohnChambers and AllanWilks of Bell Laboratories. Of course, S language is also the basis of S-Plus. So they are almost the same in program syntax, but they may be slightly different in function. The program can be easily transplanted into a program, and many unified programs can be applied to R with a little modification.

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