Vectorization of R vs. other languages

Is an advantage of R over other languages that R is vectorized?

Sure. But many other languages are also vectorized, Matlab for example. And, if I remember correctly, APL.

Not so much as it is vectorized as that it presents interactively as functional, so that instead of a for() loop, you can do things like

``` r
apply(mtcars,2,sd)
#>         mpg         cyl        disp          hp        drat          wt 
#>   6.0269481   1.7859216 123.9386938  68.5628685   0.5346787   0.9784574 
#>        qsec          vs          am        gear        carb 
#>   1.7869432   0.5040161   0.4989909   0.7378041   1.6152000

Created on 2023-11-21 with reprex v2.0.2

Basic operations are vectorized, as in

a <- runif(1000)
b <- runif(1000)
c <- a+b

Adds the two 1,000-long vectors.

+ is a function, too

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