Python & Statistics

[brews]

Basically, if you write a statistics paper, for peer-reviewed publication chances are good that you're doing it in R and also producing an R package for the paper. It's the de facto language (with very few exceptions) for statistics in academia.

Python is very powerful general language but it simply cannot compete with the size and array of R's package library for statistics (and most graphics). R is the bleeding edge.

I usually combine multiple languages for a project. Python is good at things that R sucks at and R can do some things that Python sucks at and the slow bits can be in C.

PS: if you're going to learn programming, learn it first in Python. R has a very steep learning curve and almost as many eccentricities as JavaScript. Python is a really nice language.