The idea of rewriting a large body of code in a different language does not make much sense.
Also, being a niche language has some nice consequences:
* R has been there for a long time through its predecessor S
* R is a specialized language: little chance to see it being screwed up by some library which wants to change everything, as it happens too often in python
* Because it is a niche language, its behavior is consistent across platforms (it is just easier to do with R than with python, or other "real" languages).
Note how being a "real" language goes against those advantages. Also, most researchers are very lousy programmers. Often, their software is super smart, but the code quality is awful and write-only. A less powerful language may mitigate those issues
The idea of rewriting a large body of code in a different language does not make much sense.
Also, being a niche language has some nice consequences:
Note how being a "real" language goes against those advantages. Also, most researchers are very lousy programmers. Often, their software is super smart, but the code quality is awful and write-only. A less powerful language may mitigate those issues