"R is both a strongly functional programming language and a general environment for statistical exploration of data sets. As an environment, R allows you to create many graphical representations of data from a custom command line...
"As with the interactive shells of Python, Ruby, wish for Tcl/Tk, or many Lisp environments, the R shell is a great way to explore operations--command recall and editing let you try variations on commands. In contrast to many other programming language interactive shells, but in keeping with the data-centric nature of R, the R shell will optionally save a complete environment (one per working directory)..."
