R for Excel Users
The thing is though - R is just not Excel. For many tasks (blasphemy!), Excel is simply better.<p>Take quick scenario evaluation. In Excel, I change one or two cells and see everything update immediately; in R, you need to re-run your analysis and find the outputs you&#x27;re after again. There is built-in support for scenarios in Excel. In R you have to code your analysis around it, and do the formatting for comparing, too.<p>Or take the libraries. Anything that is not statistics is just a pain in R. Everything is possible, sure - but high friction. PMT()&#x2F;IPMT() functions in R? Good luck. Sure it&#x27;s easy to code yourself (which is the advice you get when asking R users %| ) but I&#x27;m using something high level to not have to bother with that sort of thing!<p>Graphs? Yeah, there&#x27;s plot() which is straight out of 1960, or ggplot - which is easy for the simple things and then devolves into afternoons chasing obscure manual pages for this or that setting. Here&#x27;s one: plot 360 degrees of a sine wave, and it&#x27;s first and second derivatives. Then explain an Excel user how that works. (this is both because anything non-stats is bolted onto R, and because ggplot is designed around stats graphing.)<p>Keeping a matrix of data, like a simple database? Sure R can read dozens of file formats from CSV to HDF, but actually editing&#x2F;maintaining that data is a pain in the ass. Excel, just add a sheet and use vlookup - it will let you sort and filter and copy and validate, all without leaving one software package.<p>Yes, there are many things wrong with Excel. FFS, there is a conference on how to not screw things up in real life with Excel. But saying &#x27;just use R&#x27; is silly. For most applications where starry-eyed grad students advocate R over Excel (because hey, nail&#x2F;hammer, right?), Excel is just the better choice, even if that means workflows that make programming-literate folk die a little inside every time we have to work with them.