Strengths of R (was Re: [SciPy-dev] IPython updated (Emacs works now))

[eric]

Hey Tony,

> Note that one thing I'm working on doing is extending ESS (an Emacs mode for
data analysis, usually R or SAS, but also for other "interactive" data analysis
stuff) to accomodate iPython, in the hopes of (very slowly) moving towards using
R and SciPy for most of my work.

What are the benefits of R over Python/SciPy.  Is there a philosophical
difference that makes it better suited for statistics (and other things for that
matter), or is it simply that it has more stats functionality and is much more
mature?  If there is a different philosophy behind it, can you summarize it?
Maybe we can incorporate some of its strong points into SciPy's stats module.
Travis Oliphant is working on it as we speak.  We could definitely do with some
of you stats guys input!

thanks,
eric