R

Grudaire

I just want to find out if R is a used programme. We are half studying it as part of our statistics course in DCU, but as far as I know nobody else uses it, and we're the first year in DCU.

If you have not heard of R, that answers my question. SPSS is the more 'known' programme.

for info: http://cran.r-project.org/

Matthewthebig

Hello fellow DCUer.

It is used in the real world. Mature student in my course said when he went for a job interview they were glad a course was teaching R.

It is also taught in the 2nd year probability course. And in the 3rd year IS stream.

Why does it matter if a language is not used? It will still teach you programming techniques. I don't have any plans to use a functional language like Haskell again, but it taught me useful things that will help me with programming in general and I would consider that an important thing in a college course.

Grudaire

Thanks, well to be honest I'm learning all the programming in Java- R is just a side which we do a project in, but it's good that Jane Horgan hasn't just introduced some random useless thing

henbane

Horgan's course used to use SPSS. I assume they have put a stop to liberal academic licensing or something similar but as above, the package has less significance than the ideas.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Would anyone with experience of both be able to say that SPSS is worth the costly licence over R?

I've started using R a small bit in college, just scratching the surface really, but from skimming the docs and stuff, it seems pretty thorough.

henbane

SPSS is worth the cost if you intend to go in to an industry where SPSS is the standard app.