R Is (Not) the Next Big Thing
There's been some talk in the R community about a blog post by Dr. AnnMaria De Mars, entitled, "The Next Big Thing," in which the author writes:
Contrary to what some people seem to think, R is definitely not the next big thing, either. [...]
I know that R is free and I am actually a Unix fan and think Open Source software is a great idea. However, for me personally and for most users, both individual and organizational, the much greater cost of software is the time it takes to install it, maintain it, learn it and document it. On that, R is an epic fail. It does NOT fit with the way the vast majority of people in the world use computers. The vast majority of people are NOT programmers. They are used to looking at things and clicking on things.
As I'm a newbie to R and its community myself, I wanted to succinctly touch on these points with a personal observation. I've been a Linux user for the past decade, and I see some correlation between Linux's history and what's happening with R. It seems to me that R is in the "Linux, circa 1998" stage. It's unpolished, often confusing, a huge initial learning curve for the uninitiated, and can help you do Really Neat Stuff™ if you stick with it. I will not be surprised if in ten years R is the standard for statistical data analysis, much as Linux has supplanted commercial UNIX and gone on to explore territory that its predecessor never touched (look at Ubuntu).
R may not be the next big thing, but R is certainly a big thing that is forthcoming.
