R Exchange 2026

Established in 2020, R Exchange provides a regional opportunity for open-source data science enthusiasts from a variety of disciplines to connect and learn from each other.

Nick Strayer from Posit will be presenting, “Positron: Data Science Without Constraints”.

Description: There’s no shortage of explanations of what Positron does, but the why behind those features is just as important. Positron builds on lessons from RStudio and other data science IDEs, with the goal of supporting exploratory, collaborative, and multi-language data science work without switching tools. Loved your workflow in RStudio but suddenly found yourself on a Python-based team? Positron lets you bring your favorite tools, like the plots viewer and variables pane, into a Python-based workflow. That same philosophy extends to how you work with notebooks. Positron’s new notebook editor is designed to work across languages and notebook formats while taking full advantage of the surrounding IDE, bringing tools like the data explorer and Positron Assistant right into your notebook workflow. We’ll end by highlighting what’s new and upcoming in Positron as it continues to pursue this vision.