[clircle]

What's the point given that R exists?

[bachmeier]

R's a programming language. Gretl is a GUI program that was originally created for teaching econometrics. (You may not be aware that Gretl has been around for many years, so it's a legit question.)

[HWR_14]

It was invented so people could learn econometrics or for professors to use to assign econometric homework?

[zhdc1]

Gretl was released back in 2000, well before R gained enough traction be become one of the main programming languages for statistical computing.

[michaericalribo]

R itself was first released in 1993, and is based on S / S-Plus which date to the 70s...moreover, these have been standard tools since the 80s at least, well before Gretl...

[nerdponx]

R was considered "just a stats package" until the last 10-15 years.

[goosedragons]

The S of the 70s and 80s was a different beast. It was more macro based like SAS. R really didn't start to gain traction until the 2000s.

[tomrod]

Different user space. This competes with STATA and other canned package delivery applications.