I can see what the author is trying to get at, but I can't help but think the example is not so good.
If you use Excel and want to take it a bit further I would suggest that RExcel is probably a better choice. The R environment has abundant, relevant functionality for those who use Excel frequently.
When I encountered tasks that were tedious in Excel or beyond the abilities of Excel I went searching for a solution. After looking at VBA I eventually tried RExcel. I barely used RExcel as I found it more convenient to work in R itself. Now I use R and a database via ODBC far more than I use Excel. I can see using R as a gateway to other programming languages.
"I can see using R as a gateway to other programming languages."
So true. A fairly common path is Excel to VBA to RExcel to R to C++. R is great for exploring and prototyping but then C++ is often used to hard-wire the final R code for speed.
If you use Excel and want to take it a bit further I would suggest that RExcel is probably a better choice. The R environment has abundant, relevant functionality for those who use Excel frequently.
When I encountered tasks that were tedious in Excel or beyond the abilities of Excel I went searching for a solution. After looking at VBA I eventually tried RExcel. I barely used RExcel as I found it more convenient to work in R itself. Now I use R and a database via ODBC far more than I use Excel. I can see using R as a gateway to other programming languages.