“Thanks to the driving technologies of the 90s–namely, the
Internet and enterprise databases—data collection and storage
have become easier and cheaper than ever before. This has caused
many organizations to shift their focus to data extraction and
analysis components. In this new era, ‘traditional’ tabular
reporting packages now seem lacking. Expectations like real-time
information are hard to live up to–especially for many smaller
organizations. Developments at the data extraction layer are
lagging—despite the fact that newer data analysis paradigms,
like OLAP and data mining, have been growing in popularity at the
enterprise level. Moreover, many existing data extraction,
reporting, and analysis processes depend on bulky, expensive,
proprietary software, or else have been painstakingly developed
with many person-hours. These processes also tend to be geared
towards the enterprise. So what if you’re in need of an ad hoc
solution that will quickly solve small, day-to-day problems? Perl
and R can help.“R is an open-source, object-oriented system for statistical
computation and graphics compatible with the commercial S-Plus
program. I stumbled across R a couple years ago when my employer
was an SPSS shop. At the time, I didn’t feel the to learn about the
product. Now I’m working for a smaller company (<50 employees)
who simply can’t afford them spend $1200 per seat. About a month
ago, I finally looked into R. Now I’m hooked…!”