Which language should I learn when starting career as data scientist - R or Python

Question

I just wanted to know whether to start learning R or Python are both are used for data science and they usually say you shouldnt learn both of them. So I wanted to know learning which language would be easier and useful. Thank you so much..

Answer 1

I'll put down a few parameters on how R and Python differ and you can select the best required for your purpose as data science is a very vast topic.

Parameter	R	Python
Objective	Data analysis and statistics	Deployment and production
Primary Users	Scholar and R&D	Programmers and developers
Flexibility	Easy to use available library	Easy to construct new models from scratch. I.e., matrix computation and optimization
Learning curve	Difficult at the beginning	Linear and smooth
Popularity of Programming Language. Percentage change	4.23% in 2018	21.69% in 2018
Average Salary	$99.000	$100.000
Integration	Run locally	Well-integrated with app
Task	Easy to get primary results	Good to deploy algorithm

Answer 2

I believe it is better if you have the knowledge and skills for both the programming language i.e both r and python. But if by any means you are unable to learn Both the language then i suggest you should Start Learning Python first because it is must for Data Science . when you have clear knowledge about Python then later slowly you can gain the skills of python too. But for a Data Scientist it is necessary to have very broad knowledge on most of the programming language as you don't know which language will be best for a particular project.

Comments

Hi. Thanks for your answer. I am learning Python basics online. Is Python for Data Science different from normal Python?

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Hey @Rishi, python is a programming language which is universal. When it says python for data science, it means data science using python. You can use R as well for the same.

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Thanks for the reply

Answer 3

If you’re looking to become a professional data scientist, you’re going to need to learn at least one programming language. But how to decide between Python and R, the two most popular languages for data analysis? 

There are still plenty of jobs where R is required, so if you have the time it doesn’t hurt to learn both, but I’d suggest that these days, Python is becoming the dominant programming language for data scientists and the better first choice to focus on. For Data Science Python language is the third most popular programming language, whereas R has dropped over the last year from 18th to 19th place.