Variety and Mainstays of the R Developer Community

Abstract

The thriving developer community has a significant impact on the widespread use of R software. To better understand this community, we conducted a study analyzing all R packages available on CRAN. We identified the most popular topics of R packages by text mining the package descriptions. Additionally, using network centrality measures, we discovered the important packages in the package dependency network and influential developers in the global R community. Our analysis showed that among the 20 topics identified in the topic model, Data Import, Export, and Wrangling, as well as Data Visualization, Result Presentation, and Interactive Web Applications, were particularly popular among influential packages and developers. These findings provide valuable insights into the R community.