R

R is a powerful tool when in the right hands. Its ease of data manipulation and visualization, and the extensive libraries available for bioinformatics analyses makes it ideal for computational analyses of biological data. And to me, plots from R seem so much more aesthetically pleasing and satisfying than ones from MATLAB or Python. So I fully support the idea of teaching biological engineers how to use R. 

Yet given the amount of time devoted to it, 20.109 does not seem the place to do so. As well-written as the exercises are, the amount of code we write ourselves for these analyses is so small that we retain very little from one exercise to the next. Ultimately, it becomes reduced to an exercise in copy and paste, finding relevant code from the previous exercise and pasting it into the next in a patchwork of code we don't fully understand. Properly understanding and learning the basics of any language requires repetition and beyond what these three or four exercises provide, and more importantly, relies on our practicing writing our own code. 

I understand that the goal is not as much to make us competent in R as much as develop the skill of learning new programming languages. But at the end of the day, the purpose of 20.109 is to develop our communication skills and to learn relevant laboratory techniques. The introduction of R in 20.109 draws away precious time that might be put towards those aspects instead and may even be counter-productive in generating frustration towards the language. I believe R is a tool we should all learn, but not in 20.109. 

-Joshua

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