The old joke is that the reason why R is awesome is that it was created by statisticians, and the reason why R sucks is that it was created by statisticians. As an every-day user of R, I can't help but think that description is perfect.
It also means that R isn't going away. It is getting more popular, and there is a ton of work on improving the runtime, which will only mitigate people's itches to move away from it. But most importantly, it has the network effects to its advantage.
Even as a Clojure lover, I can't see R ever being substituted. I see more hope for the Renjin project than I see for alternatives like Pandas/SciPi/NumPy, Julia, or Incanter.
It also means that R isn't going away. It is getting more popular, and there is a ton of work on improving the runtime, which will only mitigate people's itches to move away from it. But most importantly, it has the network effects to its advantage.
Even as a Clojure lover, I can't see R ever being substituted. I see more hope for the Renjin project than I see for alternatives like Pandas/SciPi/NumPy, Julia, or Incanter.