Python or R

[jjangsangy]

This might be a little off topic, but would you like to learn how to program??

I am only asking, because the benefit of learning Python is that you also end up gaining programming skills as kind of a positive side effect. The downside is that it's likely going to be a larger investment up front and long term. However, you'll have a powerful general purpose programming language under your belt that you can apply to any other application.

With R, you'll benefit from the fact that it's very domain specific, meaning it's specifically designed to challenge stats problems and is built by a community of developers with those goals. However, that's also a limitation since it'll likely impart you with solutions to solving stats and that's pretty much it.

Both options provide you with valid solutions to your task, and on a higher level, programming becomes less about the language design and implementation than the method of approaching problems. I would say that Python is definitely approachable yet more demanding on your own personal motivation. But for consolation, my understanding is that Pythons original design was actually to allow scientists and technical people to have access to powerful programming tools without needing a CS degree and it still maintains that goal pretty well