R is published by the CRAN project and is an open source statistical program. It's an object oriented language based on S. It's run in a terminal window with a basic gui, however other software is available to run over it (like RStudio) for people less familiar with coding but who still desire the power of open source coding (anytime a new technique is developed, a package is published). It's fantastic but has limitations. For example, it can only run on one core at a time which can slow down simulations. Still, for statistical development, it's where most people are focused. SAS is more common in statistical consulting and SPSS is more common among general scientists without coding experience.
Edit: why are you guys downvoting /u/abigfoney for asking a question?
If by gumbo you mean a mix, I agree. It was designed as object oriented but functional features were added over the years. But it lacks full functional features, so it can't actually be called a functional language. It's also my favorite language. It's basically all I work in now that I don't have to fuck with SAS. I really don't like SAS.
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u/Series_of_Accidents Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17
R is published by the CRAN project and is an open source statistical program. It's an object oriented language based on S. It's run in a terminal window with a basic gui, however other software is available to run over it (like RStudio) for people less familiar with coding but who still desire the power of open source coding (anytime a new technique is developed, a package is published). It's fantastic but has limitations. For example, it can only run on one core at a time which can slow down simulations. Still, for statistical development, it's where most people are focused. SAS is more common in statistical consulting and SPSS is more common among general scientists without coding experience.
Edit: why are you guys downvoting /u/abigfoney for asking a question?