If you can have 31 flavours of Icecream, why can’t you have atleast two flavours for open source data science. R for the data visualization and statistical libraries, Python for machine learning and the production environment. As part of my research for my upcoming book ” Python for R users – A Data Science Approach”, here are some ways to use both Python and R
- rpy2 communication channel from Python to R. rpy2 is an interface to R running embedded in a Python process. The project is mature, stable, and widely used. A lucid example of using it is given here at A Slug’s Guide to Python
https://sites.google.com/site/aslugsguidetopython/data-analysis/pandas/calling-r-from-python . - conda -Jupyter – You can use R Kernel from within Jupyter/iPython . You can see here https://www.continuum.io/conda-for-r and https://www.continuum.io/blog/developer/jupyter-and-conda-r
It uses the R kernel for Jupyter at http://irkernel.github.io/ . Here is a tutorial I wrote in Jupyter but in Python alone 
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/gist/decisionstats/c1684daaeecf62dd4bf4 - Beaker Notebook – You can see Beaker from http://beakernotebook.com/ . This is a relatively new kind of software and allows you to mix Python and R within the same notebook (unlike Jupyter which allows you either a Python or a R kernel) . Here is a notebook I created https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/5657e715-bdaf-4787-99fc-a0d7f37c3e38 Beaker allows even JS, Scala and otehr languages within the same notebook so its heavily amazing as an Idea. I also note that they are silver sponsors at http://user2016.org/ through their parent company https://www.twosigma.com/
Using multiple languages in data science is clearly an idea whose time has come. Tools like Jupyter, rpy2 and Beaker can also speeden up this exciting trend. The customer should dictate the need for data science, and the need should dictate the software, the software should dictate which data scientist to choose or skill up. Right now, we choose data scientists and software first and then try and fit them to the project use case.
Have an amazing 2016 for data science from the DecisionStats team and I hope you liked us in 2015!
DECISION STATS 