Ashlee Vance doesn't know what he's talking about

It is quite obvious that Ashlee Vance doesn't know what he is talking about , when he writes about R. He clearly didn't do even the minimum of research.

This is typical of the New York Times. For years we've seen articles by journalists who didn't bother to do their homework. The NYT has a history of coasting on their reputation.

First, Vance's statements that R is especially easy to use compared to other statistical tools is a falsehood.
Second, Vance leaves the reader to believe that R is a new type of statistical software, a new invention whose innovations users benefit from. Not true. He gives no credit to the AT&T researchers who designed the S programming language. The R team did not design the user interface for R. R uses the same user interface as the older S and S-Plus proprietary products , which is primarily the S programming language. R is a copycat of S-Plus.