R
/ahr/ · noun · Development · Origin: 1993
Definitions
A programming language and environment specifically designed for statistical computing and data visualization. R's comprehensive package ecosystem (CRAN) and its powerful plotting libraries (ggplot2) have made it a standard tool in academia, biostatistics, and data science, though Python has increasingly encroached on its territory.
In plain English: A programming language built specifically for statistics and making charts, popular with researchers and data analysts.
Example: The biostatistician insists on R for all the analysis — says ggplot2 produces publication-ready figures that matplotlib can't match.
Origin Story
Named after its creators' first initials (and a nod to S)
Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman created R at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1993. They wanted a free implementation of the **S language** (created at Bell Labs by John Chambers) for statistical computing.
The name **R** comes from the first letter of both creators' first names: **R**oss and **R**obert. It's also a play on the name of S, its predecessor -- R comes before S in the alphabet, but the developers have acknowledged the pun was secondary to the initial-letter explanation.
R became the dominant language for statistical computing and data visualization. Its package ecosystem (CRAN) has over 20,000 packages. While Python has encroached on R's territory in machine learning, R remains preferred by statisticians and academic researchers.
Coined by: Ross Ihaka, Robert Gentleman
Context: University of Auckland, New Zealand, 1993
Fun fact: The S language that inspired R was itself named as a joke -- S stands for 'Statistics', but John Chambers chose the single letter partly because the language C was already taken. The progression from S to R makes the naming even more confusing.