What is the R programming language used for?

Many of the computer programming languages you will learn are universally applicable. You can use them to create all kinds of applications. However, other programming languages have been developed for a specific task and have become well known because they perform this task more efficiently or make it easier to program the solution. R is one of these specialized programming languages.

R is a programming language developed by statisticians for statisticians, specifically for working with data. It is a language for statistical calculations and data visualizations that is widely used by business analysts, data analysts, data scientists and researchers. Let's take a look at more details of the R language to see what sets it apart.

What makes R unique?

R is unique because it is not universal. It doesn't compromise by trying to do a lot of things. It can do a few things very well, especially statistical analysis and data visualization. For languages like Python, there are libraries for data analysis and machine learning, but R has a lot of statistical functions built into its core. For much of the core data analysis you can perform with the language, no third-party libraries are required.

But even for this specific use case, R is used in every industry imaginable because a modern business thrives on data. Using historical data, data scientists and data analysts can determine the health of an organization and provide business leaders with actionable insights about the future of their company.

What is R used for?

Just because R is used specifically for statistical analysis and data visualization does not mean that its use is limited. On the contrary, it is a widely used programming language. Academics, scientists and researchers use it to analyze the results of experiments. It is also used by companies of all sizes and industries to gain insights from the growing amount of data generated on a daily basis.

Fintech

Fintech companies are companies that deal with financial services. R is used in many of these companies because money and statistics go hand in hand. Banks use the R language to create credit risk models and perform other types of risk analysis. It is also used for fraud detection, mortgage modeling, volatility modeling, customer valuation, and simulating stress tests for loans.

Research

When data falls from the sky: intelligent data science approaches are changing the interaction between humans and computers. (Illustration: Niklas Briner) - Source: ethz.ch

The R programming language is widely used in science and research. At Cornell University, for example, R is taught in courses that require statistical computing. The University of California teaches students statistics and data analysis by introducing them to R, and many other universities do the same.

Retail trade

In retail and e-commerce, R is used to assess risk and develop marketing strategies. For example, R's machine learning capabilities are used to improve cross-selling and suggest better related products at the checkout to increase profits and sales. R is also used for sales modeling and targeted advertising in retail. Both Amazon and Flipkart use the R programming language for data analysis.

Government

The National Weather Service uses the R programming language for forecasting disasters and for weather forecasting.The visualization functions of R are also used to create weather forecast images. In addition, the FDA uses R to evaluate drugs, conduct preclinical trials and predict potential reactions to the food products it tests.

Data journalism

Data journalists use data to tell a story. They are journalists and data scientists who turn public data into insights about our world and the way we live.This could be information from local government and police sources to tell a story about crime, financial data to show the state of a country's economy, or any other type of data that reveals an interesting pattern in the way our world works. R is a favorite language for data journalists because it gives them the ability to find these insights and create stunning graphics that tell the story.

Social media

Social media has always been a data-intensive industry. We are tracked everywhere we go online. Every single action is stored in a database, waiting for an analyst to glean insights from it. The only source of revenue for most social media sites is the data they have on their users and targeted advertising. The R programming language is used to analyze social media, segment potential customers and target advertising.

Healthcare

R is often used in genetics, bioinformatics, drug research and epidemiology. In drug research, for example, R is used to process the data collected in preclinical trials and determine the safety of a drug. In epidemiology, it is used to predict the spread of a disease in the event of a pandemic.

Manufacture

Production employees - Source: betterteam.com

Many companies use the R programming language to analyze customer feedback in order to improve the products they manufacture. Ford Motor Company uses R to analyze consumer opinions about its vehicles and improve their design. John Deere uses R to determine how many spare parts and products to produce based on crop yields and other data.