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Oluwafemi Paul Adeyemi
Oluwafemi Paul Adeyemi

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R, beyond Statistical Programming

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R was specifically created for Statistical Programming (for Data Analysis) and is currently great for Data Science and Machine Learning. However, what it can be used for is far beyond those mentioned above. The following are examples of what R can be used for.

1. Games

Wait a minute R? Yes, R! R may look like the most unlikely program for such a thing, but it can be used to develop games. Well, what type of games? You can see some games developed in R here.

2. Web Applications

Ever heard of Shiny? Yes, with the R package called Shiny, you could build your own website. Although it is true that JavaScript frame works like: Angular and React (for frontend development) and Express.js (which is based on Node.js for backend) are great and specifically designed for web development, but you can take advantage of R to build a website that will serve a similar purpose. However, the draw back is that you may not be able to separate concerns, which was the main idea behind the frontend and backend developments, so that: full stack = frontend + backend. With the help of some other packages, you can also write web APIs and manage your Database. Find out more about shiny here.

3. Animations

While you may not be able to make animated movies like those from Disney, you could really make a lot of real animations using R. You could animate graphs, charts, pictures e.t.c. Find out more about R animations here.
Finally, while there are programming languages that were primarily designed to handle the three things discussed above, using R is of great advantage to an R programmer who may want to do such things, as the time that would have been spent learning a new language can be saved, provided the programmer is not under compulsion to use any particular tools. Now you know that R is really useful beyond Arithmetic.

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