R first appeared in 1996, when the statistics professors Robert Gentleman, left, and Ross Ihaka released the code as a free software package.Credit...Left, Stuart Isett for The New York Times; right, Kieran Scott for The New York Times To some people R is just the 18th letter of the alphabet. To others, it’s the rating on racy movies, a measure of an attic’s insulation or what pirates in movies sa
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