Microsoft and R

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Microsoft and R

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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March 18, 2015 at 8:21 pm

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Microsoft and R

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Alan Burstein SSC Guru Points: 61141 More actions · Answer 1

Great article. There is a good article about this at on SQLMag.com. This is huge news indeed and is all the rage where I work.

"I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."

-- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001

Gary Varga SSC Guru Points: 82166 More actions · Answer 2

Microsoft has a reasonable track record when it comes to buying in technologies and making products from them and/or incorporating them into existing products. I will not predict whether this will be a success (I don't have a reasonable track record when it comes to predictions) but I am sure that they will do, at least, a reasonable job of using it. Success depends on the vagaries of the market.

Gaz

-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

shoestringdba SSCertifiable Points: 6226 More actions · Answer 3

R really isn't all that bad. I've used it though not in conjunction with SQL Server yet. If you've done any kind of coding you should be able to pick it up without too much trouble.

Coursera has a number of statistics courses that involve learning R either as an optional or integral part of the course. Worth checking out and you can't beat free.

I'm sure there are MOOCs from other online sites on the subject.

____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.

akljfhnlaflkj SSC Guru Points: 76202 More actions · Answer 4

We do a lot of analytics in my environment. Hope some of this makes it into the base sql language.

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125561 More actions · Answer 5

R is good, but R# will be even better.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

Robert.Sterbal SSCrazy Points: 2855 More actions · Answer 6

Maybe this will be a solid step in making me an armchair epidemiologist, or at least more useful to the people who ask those kinds of questions.

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125561 More actions · Answer 7

Hopefully R# will be to data analytics what C# is to application development, and it won't simply be a curious wallflower like J# and F#.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

DavidL Hall of Fame Points: 3582 More actions · Answer 8

Could be a very useful tool in the kit. BI, data visualization, big data analytics etc are very important 'next big things' (though I suppose they are no longer 'next'), and this could, if done well, help MS stay relevant. For stats we use SAS/JMP, for data viz we use Tableau. I don't see ms competing in either space, but they could keep sql server relevant by wrapping in R.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736212 More actions · Answer 9

Eric M Russell (3/19/2015)
R is good, but R# will be even better.

I hope so. No unmanaged code if possible.

DEK46656 SSCrazy Points: 2111 More actions · Answer 10

A couple of other folks mentioned this already, but I can definitely see it: R#

Think about it; C#, ADO.NET, and R# all working together…

Beer's Law: Absolutum obsoletum
"if it works it's out-of-date"

xsevensinzx One Orange Chip Points: 25560 More actions · Answer 11

Well...

You have RStudio Server, which is:

RStudio Server enables you to provide a browser based interface to a version of R running on a remote Linux server, bringing the power and productivity of the RStudio IDE to server-based deployments of R.

While it's cool to integrate all in one, running complex models on the same instance you are storing data sounds like added pressure where it doesn't need to be? We have been using R to absorb data via flat files where we run complex models on targeted data that in return, spits data back out for SQL Server to absorb. It's separate, contained in their own environments and works pretty well near the data.

The other thing is that you also have Python and various reporting solutions that integrate R too. I would assume those options, including Python, which can integrate easier into application development would still be the go-to's?

Other than that, I have yet to learn about R#. Let me check that out.

chrisn-585491 SSCoach Points: 16006 More actions · Answer 12

You don't need R if you have Python and it's awesome third party libraries. 😛

Plus F# isn't a wallflower. F# is the best of the functional first languages. If you are a serious developer and not just a CRUD developer, F# is a pleasure to use. It's a much better language for many domains than C#.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736212 More actions · Answer 13

chrisn-585491 (3/25/2015)
Plus F# isn't a wallflower. F# is the best of the functional first languages. If you are a serious developer and not just a CRUD developer, F# is a pleasure to use. It's a much better language for many domains than C#.

Good ref/tutorial to get started? Something to build good habits?

Alan Burstein SSC Guru Points: 61141 More actions · Answer 14

chrisn-585491 (3/25/2015)
Plus F# isn't a wallflower. F# is the best of the functional first languages. If you are a serious developer and not just a CRUD developer, F# is a pleasure to use.

True that. I, however, like xslt 3.0 the best. me and, like 6 other people unfortunately.

"I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."

-- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001