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Tomorrow (July 23, 2020 ) I am speaking on the history of the R statistical software environment as part of a virtual panel for a Lunch & Learn. I like how they used “featuring” in the announcement. It is like I am a hip-hop star! The title of my talk is, A History of R (in 15 minutes…and mostly in pictures).
R @ 25 Lunch & Learn: Understanding the Landscape of the Popular Free/Open Source Statistics Software
Featuring Andrew Zieffler, Ph.D. (EPSY); Alicia Hofelich Mohr, Ph.D. (LATIS); Ethan C. Brown, Ph.D. (RMCC), and Jeffrey K. Bye, Ph.D. (EPSY/RMCC)
Co-sponsored by RMCC and LATIS
Abstract: The R statistical software environment has a large international community, powerful data-management and visualization tools, implements cutting-edge methods, and can be used to create beautiful web dashboards and customized reports. In this panel discussion to celebrate the 25th anniversary of R being licensed as open-source software, we will explore the growth of R from its humble beginnings as a project by two University of Auckland statistics professors to install S on a Macintosh computer to its current status as computational statistics lingua franca. We will also discuss how to navigate the large ecosystem of R packages including classic “base R”, the “tidyverse” and others. Finally, we will provide tips and resources on getting started learning R and also growing your R proficiency—including upcoming workshops and courses here at the U. This panel discussion is for everyone interested in learning more about R, but doesn’t assume any R experience.
References and Resources
First, my slides:
The slides include a long list of references, many of which are videos of talks by the people who appear in my slides. And believe me, they can tell their story better than I can. Unfortunately when I flattened the PDF the links no longer work, so I re-print them here with links. The new PDF should have working links!
History of S and R [video]
- Becker, R. (2016). Forty years of S. Presentation at the UseR! conference. Stanford, CA.
- Chamber, J. M (2014). Interface Efficiency and Big Data. Keynote address at the UseR! conference. Los Angeles, CA.
- Dalgaard, P. (2018). What’s in a name? 20 years of R release management. UseR! Conference, Brisbane, Australia.
- Dalgaard, P. (2020). A brief history of R and some thoughts about its future. CelebRation 2020 conference, Copenhagen, Denmark.
- Peng, R. (2015). Overview and history of R.
- Revolutions. (2014). John Chambers recounts the history of S and R. An interview by Trevor Hastie.
History of S and R [papers/slides/resources]
- Becker, R. A., & Chambers, J. M. (1978). Design and implementation of the “S” system for interactive data analysis. The IEEE Computer Society’s Second International Computer Software and Applications Conference, 1978. COMPSAC ’78., 626–629.
- Chambers, J. M. (2006). History of S and R (with some thoughts for the future). Presentation at the UseR! Conference, Vienna, Austria.
- D’Agostino McGowan, L. (2017). R release names. Livefreeordichotomize blog.
- Gentleman, R. (2009). R and modern statistical computing. Talk.
- Gentleman, R., & Ihaka, R. (2000). Lexical scope and statistical computing. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 9(3), 491–508.
- Ihaka, R. (1998). R: Past and future history. Interface ’98.
- Ihaka, R. (2009). The R Project: A brief history and thoughts about the future. Massey University Statistics Day. Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
- Ihaka, R., & Gentleman, R. (1996). R: A language for data analysis and graphics. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 5(3), 299–314.
- The R Foundation. (n.d.). The R Project for Statistical Computing. [website]