Code Ocean offers many base environments with different languages pre-installed. You can also use the environment & configuration options to install multiple languages in one compute capsule. Available package managers will suffice for many common languages; less common languages will likely require a postInstall script.

Which environment should I start with?

If you:

are not using a pre-installed language, use a base Ubuntu (18.04 or 16.04) environment;
need proprietary software, such as MATLAB or Stata, start from an environment with proprietary language;
use a GPU, select an environment with GPU access (these will be explicitly labeled as such, or will reference CUDA or a deep learning framework);
need general flexibility, start from an image with Conda these will have Python as well).

Installing a language using package managers:

The following are all available as apt-get packages:

build-essential for the C/C++ toolchain (gcc/g++, make, etc.);
r-base for R (note: r-base-dev will help you install R packages, and we also recommend adding a MRAN snapshot for R 3.4.4, which is what is available via apt-get as of this writing);
octave for Octave;
python-pip for Python 2 and the pip installer;
python3-pip for Python 3 and the pip3 installer;
perl for Perl (add cpanm if needed);
luajit for Lua (add luarocks if needed);
default-jdk for Java;
gfortran for Fortran.

Once you add R or python, the commands Rscript or python will become available, respectively.

Installing langauges through Conda

If your base image has a conda installer, or if you add it via postInstall script, you can add languages and language-specific packages via supplemental conda channels.

python is available by default (you can add python as a package, however, and specify the version (e.g. 2.7.15 to install a different python version);
julia and lua are available through conda-forge;
r is available from channel r.

Installing languages via the postInstall script:

See New and additional languages, toolboxes and compilers for examples such as D, GHDL, or gcc 7.

What if I need proprietary software that isn't currently supported?