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The R Language: A Powerful Tool for Taming Big Data

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Encyclopedia of Big Data Technologies

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Definition

The R language (R Core Team 2017; Chambers 2008; Matloff 2011) is currently the most popular tool in the general data science field. It features outstanding graphics capabilities and a rich set of more than 10,000 library packages to draw upon. (Other notable languages in data science are Python and Julia. Python is popular among those trained in computer science. Julia, a new language, has as top priority producing fast code.) Its interfaces to SQL databases and the C/C++ language are first rate. All of this, along with recent developments regarding memory issues, makes R well poised as a highly effective tool in Big Data applications. In this chapter, the use of R in Big Data settings will be presented.

It should be noted that Big Data can be “big” in one of two ways, phrased in terms of the classical n × p matrix representing a dataset:

  • Big-n: Large number of data points.

  • Big-p: Large number of variables/features.

Both senses will come into play later. For now, though,...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Norman Matloff

  2. Department of Statistics, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Clark Fitzgerald

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Robin Yancey

Authors
  1. Norman Matloff
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  2. Clark Fitzgerald
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  3. Robin Yancey
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Norman Matloff .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Comp. Sci. and Engineering, University of New South Wales School of Comp. Sci. and Engineering, Eveleigh, New South Wales, Australia

    Sherif Sakr

  2. Sch of Info Techno, Building J12, University of Sydney Sch of Info Techno, Building J12, Sydney, Australia

    Albert Zomaya

Section Editor information

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), University of New South Wales http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~ssakr/

    Sherif Sakr

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Matloff, N., Fitzgerald, C., Yancey, R. (2018). The R Language: A Powerful Tool for Taming Big Data. In: Sakr, S., Zomaya, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Big Data Technologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63962-8_294-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63962-8_294-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63962-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63962-8

  • eBook Packages: Living Reference MathematicsReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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