[Yeikoff]

I do not really disagree with you, except for the '<-' bit, just map it to a keyboard shortcut, and move on :).

But I would give R a try with the tidyverse, it made me go from hating R to just not caring about it.

While libraries are extremely inconsistent, if you want to use cutting edge statistical methdos as a researcher, you pretty much have no other option. Finally, data wrangling is quite well developed in the R evironment.

So long story short, after many years of hating R, now I just find it a handy tool to do my work despite it being old, inconsistent and sometimes annoying.

[mannykannot]

I don't get how a keyboard shortcut deals with the '<-' issue, which is the occasional and subtle difference in semantics from '='. Even if you can pick just one for your own work, it doesn't help with other people's code.

Tidyverse is new to me, I must check it out.

[baldfat]

RStudio shortcut for <- is alt and -.

Also Tidyverse and data.table are the main reason for the sudden explosion of R's popularity. For me I love the piping since I am an old time bash user and | becomes %>% in R is the best thing for the way i think.

[mannykannot]

Typing '<-' is a fairly trivial matter, I think, compared to the semantic issues raised at the start of this thread, and covered in the question and answers below - for example (from the chosen answer): "R's syntax contains many ambiguous cases that have to be resolved one way or another. The parser chooses to resolve the bits of the expression in different orders depending on whether = or <- was used."

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1741820/assignment-opera...

[Yeikoff]

Just use the '<-' all the time, except in function calls. If you can use '<-' with an easy key press you will not be tempted to use '='. And the problem is greatly reduced.

But yes, the problem is still there.