<p>I've been thinking about whether this site should incorporate more computing questions. I think the current position of this site can be summarised by this <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1/how-to-answer-r-questions">question</a> (which I asked!).</p>

<p><strong>Why change</strong></p>

<p>I occasionally use Minitab, and when I do I struggle with basic macros. Where would I ask a computing question on Minitab. </p>

<ul>
<li>SO: unlikely to be many Minitab users there.</li>
<li>Stats.exchange: Lots (I'm guessing) of Minitab users here, but the question would be offtopic and closed.</li>
</ul>

<p>This issue would also apply to SPSS and SAS questions. </p>

<p>Furthermore, many answers to questions at this site include R code. However, if someone queried the programming aspects of the code they would have to do so at SO. Also the main people who answer R questions are already on this site - see the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged?tagnames=r&amp;sort=stats&amp;pagesize=50">stats on r questions</a> at SO.</p>

<p><strong>Proposed change</strong></p>

<p>Some languages are developed with statistics in mind. For example, </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The best thing about R is that it was
  developed by statisticians. The worst
  thing about R is that it was developed by statisticians.</p>
  
  <p>Bo Cowgill, Google.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Therefore I propose that we allow computing questions for certain languages/applications. The obvious ones being: R, SAS, SPSS and Minitab. The languages would be stated in the FAQs.</p>

<p>Flame away!</p>
