title: The Art of R Programming: A Tour of Statistical Software Design
author: Norman Matloff
description: <strong>From the Author: Why Use R for Your Statistical Work?</strong>
zlib_text:  
   
   
  
  R Programming 
  i 
   
  About the Tutorial 
  R is a programming language and software environment for statistical analysis, graphics 
  representation and reporting. R was created by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the 
  University of Auckland, New Zealand, and is currently developed by the R Development 
  Core Team. 
  R is freely available under the GNU General Public License, and pre-compiled binary 
  versions are provided for various operating systems like Linux, Windows and Mac. 
  This programming language was named R, based on the first letter of first name of the 
  two R authors (Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka), and partly a play on the name of the 
  Bell Labs Language S. 
  Audience 
  This tutorial is designed for software programmers, statisticians and data miners who are 
  looking forward for developing statistical software using R programming. If you are trying 
  to understand the R programming language as a beginner, this tutorial will give you 
  enough understanding on almost all th