​http://www.r-project.org/

Introduction

R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is a GNU project which is similar to the S language and environment which was developed at Bell Laboratories (formerly AT&T, now Lucent Technologies) by John Chambers and colleagues. R can be considered as a different implementation of S. There are some important differences, but much code written for S runs unaltered under R.
R 是一種用在統計計算及繪圖的語言及環境，它是 GNU project，且非常類似 S 語言，它由 Bell Laboratories 開發。你可以把它想像成只是 S 不一樣的實作方法。它和 S 有些重大的不同，但大多數可以由 S 寫的程式碼依舊能在 R 上執行。

R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The S language is often the vehicle of choice for research in statistical methodology, and R provides an Open Source route to participation in that activity.
R 提供了多種統計的 (線性及非線性模組，典型的統計測試，時間序列分析，分數，群) 和繪圖的技術，並且具高度可擴充性。S 語言是一種用在統計方法研究的選擇，R 提供一個開放源碼來參與此活動。

One of R's strengths is the ease with which well-designed publication-quality plots can be produced, including mathematical symbols and formulae where needed. Great care has been taken over the defaults for the minor design choices in graphics, but the user retains full control.
R 的其中一個長處是安逸