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Why do we use R rather than Excel?

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Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#91

Post by verelo »

papaf wrote: post #79
verelo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly i struggle with it. My partner recently wrote an R package (phd biology) and I’m a developer. I had done a bit of R but nothing substantial. By the end of the project i couldn’t think of a compelling reason not to use any other language. The R tooling is clumsy, the language isn’t great…the built in graphs are ok? It feels like the reason it’s popular is mostly just people not wanting to update skills becaus…

The R tooling is clumsy I really like the R tooling. What do you find clumsy about it? It feels like the reason it’s popular is mostly just people not wanting to update skills I have the opposite view. I find its the people who complain about R because its a bit different are the ones who are inflexible about learning new skills.

Package management is painful, replicating our two environments as i did a peer review always took way more effort than it would have in many other languages.

I found my partner, Jess, to be using some fairly niche packages for stats, which admittedly would be harder to replicate in other languages. I personally think it’s fine to use, there’s no harm, but as someone comfortable with many languages, most the people i found debating the pros of R (since this project and it coming up in discussion) often are in non software fields and it’s their only language. I personally wouldn’t choose it over python and i might even consider something old school like Java for similar projects if i didn’t have an audience that only understood the work in R.

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#92

Post by jrochkind1 »

fighterpilot wrote: post #87
corty wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that R isn't ideal, and a proper programming language is preferable to both. Which one of course will depend on the domain, but proper control over float precision, fixed-point arithmetics, bignum and debuggability isn't good in R either. It's just that R is still far above Excel.

I mostly agree, but at least Excel is more easily inspectable by a human, which makes a certain class of errors (specifically, silly logic bugs) less likely to get through.

It's not obvious to me that Excel is more easibly inspectable, can you say more?

To me, R seems more easily inspectable, as all the logic of a program is visible just by looking at text files, where in Excel it's hidden "under the surface", you have to click on cells, look at what's there, go click on other cells that relate to it, remember what you were looking at in the first one that's now invisible, etc.

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#94

Post by crazygringo »

corty wrote: post #77
HPsquared wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can set the data type to "text" when importing CSVs, that turns most things off.

Most, but not all. That is the entire point: Excel is never safe in any configuration.

If "not all", can you provide an example of what gets converted if you specify text?

Just want to know to avoid future gotchas.

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#95

Post by tomrod »

tomrod wrote: post #43

Unless you need the frontier of statistical methods and are unable to code them yourself, I highly recommend not engaging R. While Hadley Wickham has done amazing things to make the R language actually useful, Python and Julia are better for data applications. Also, bindings to the R language exist, obviating the need to be tied into it completely. Thus, even if you need the frontier, you have it available to you.

Just as a followup, when asked I also excoriate Python for its gap in typing for data applications. But that gap isn't as wide as the gulf between Python & Julia vs R

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#96

Post by ekianjo »

underdeserver wrote: post #24

For non-programmers who do any kind of data processing, spreadsheet applications (Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets) are the closest thing to programming they have, and have a lot less overhead - just throw in the data, write a formula, you get results, no compilation or fidgeting with input and output and so on. The steps of an algorithm are reflected by cells that reference cells that reference cells. I've always thoug…

> it really is a superpower in many contexts.

It's a trap because once you get comfortable in Excel you have a lot of resistance to try anything more productive than Excel. Seen that numerous times with people who work really fast with Excel yet end up very limited as to what they can actually deal with beyond simple problems.

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#97

Post by ineedasername »

protomyth wrote: post #27

R isn't interactive or visual like Excel. Excel's learning curve is a lot less daunting. Also, Excel is ingrained in the accounting culture and well supported by peers. Plus Excel is everyone's default database and form software. None of the article's reasons matter to non-IT people and no IT department has the juice to override the CFO and accountants. Unlike, every other interactive tool that displeases programmers…

Most of what you said only applies when the tasks are accounting related. There's a lot more to Excel, and a lot more than that to R.

And just like, in accounting, you're not going to get the CFO to choose R over Excel, in many circles involving data analysis and statistics you won't get to choose anything but R.

Also you don't need an interactive front end for R any more than you need an interactive front end for any other programming language. The scope of use is too large to allow for a single GUI. There are some packages that provide a GUI for specific purposes, like rattle, which provides an interface for common data mining tasks and models. I'd you want a pretty good spreadsheet GUI for viewing and modifying data, you can use rhandsontable. Just a few examples.

Replacing Excel with R isn't necessary and I think would miss the point & relative strengths of the different tools. Recognizing where each tool is better suited for your needs, and if R is worth the learning curve for your specific needs, is what is important.

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#98

Post by corty »

fighterpilot wrote: post #87
corty wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that R isn't ideal, and a proper programming language is preferable to both. Which one of course will depend on the domain, but proper control over float precision, fixed-point arithmetics, bignum and debuggability isn't good in R either. It's just that R is still far above Excel.

I mostly agree, but at least Excel is more easily inspectable by a human, which makes a certain class of errors (specifically, silly logic bugs) less likely to get through.

Not really. Logic in Excel is based on stuff like SUMIF( ...) which is totally unreadable without lots of context about the cell or range it refers to. If someone fumbled the fill command and some cell is missing the formula? You'll never know and the result will be automatically and silently zero. References to that result will just use the zero as input. Mixed fixed/nonfixed references like A$3? Unreadable and hard to understand. References per se? Unreadable because undescriptive, maybe there will be a column or field label, maybe there won't. Also, formulas are always hidden by default, you'll just get a sea of numbers.

Calling Excel easily inspectable is laughably wrong imho. Just the opposite.

Re: Why do we use R rather than Excel?

#100

Post by dtnewman »

i think that part of the answer is that software engineers simply aren’t (usually) familiar with excel. It’s a remarkably complex and powerful program but if you never used it professionally you will never learn its full potential. Yes, it’s easier to do useful stuff as a beginner in excel vs a real programming language but to get really good at it takes time. You might think you know excel because you’ve used it in some of your classes, but to quote my first boss, if you don’t know how to use excel without ever touching a mouse then you aren’t even an intermediate user.
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