R is not only a program for analyzing and visualizing data, it is an
open and programmable software environment. It can not only easily
access other programs written in a wide variety of languages, but also
be accessed itself from other programs. As such, it can be seen as the
computational Swiss army knife of statistics. Connecting a program to
R can be surprisingly simple, and once the connection is established,
the perhaps largest existing collection of statistical methodology is
available through a unified interface. Embedding R can save a lot of
human time by automating routine tasks, but more importantly, it often
gives a simple way of making our methods accessible to a much wider
audience