As of last week, Microsoft Sho [the .NET Playground for Data] is publicly available for download. Check it out.

“Sho is an interactive environment for data analysis and scientific computing that lets you seamlessly connect scripts (in IronPython) with compiled code (in .NET) to enable fast and flexible prototyping. The environment includes powerful and efficient libraries for linear algebra as well as data visualization that can be used from any .NET language, as well as a feature-rich interactive shell for rapid development. Sho is available under the following license.”

I’ve been trying it out a bit, and skimming through the book. I think there’s a possibility that I just may like this thing better than R. There’s also a rather interesting Channel 9 video on the topic. Here it is: