title: What do I lose if I move from R to Python?
body: <p>I am intermediate in R and a beginner in Python. However my core abilities lie less in data analysis and more in programming and developing large software systems in teams, and I don't have time to become an expert in both.</p>
  
  <p>Given the advances in the Python world in numpy, scipy, pandas, and its prevalence in data science and in general programming, I think I need to concentrate on Python (even though I enjoy R a lot), and accept that for some tasks I might be 75% as efficient, say, as I would be in R. I'd find this efficiency loss acceptable in order to be a master of one language rather than intermediate at both.</p>
  
  <p>However I don't know enough about either language to really be sure of my facts. I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who is experienced in both R and Python and can say what would be the <em>significant</em> disadvantages, if any, of dropping R in favour of Python?</p>
  
  <p>Edit 5: <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/1595/python-as-a-statistics-workbench">this question on stats.stackexchange</a> is similar and has some great answers. </p>
  
  <p>(Edits 3-4: reverted content/title to original question, which was closed. The original question attracted a lot of expert comment, my attempt to narrow the question to reopen it failed, and I'd prefer to have these comments below the original text they were commenting on.)</p>