R is really just the worst, and the instructors do not make it better. The code in this class is unreadable:- too many one liners, because its faster to write, though harder for other people to read- variables are named cryptic things like spIns or x, rather than names with meaning (eg, sprays.by.insect), again because its faster to type- way too many cases of there is more than one way to do it, which just makes things confusing because the other ways tend not to be equivalentWhat Im most concerned about is that Ive seen lots of poorly written code in many different languages: Java, C++, C, Python, Perl, and now R. But Ive also seen really well-written code in all the languages *but* R, I have yet to see any code in R that is flexible, maintainable, and clear. Which leads me to think that no such code exists, or its so rare that it doesnt matter. It is clear to me that if I am to do data analysis, then I will need a different set of tools; but because this specialization is taught entirely around R (the lectures are about R, not about higher-level concepts), then this specialization is not useful to me.
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