With so much emphasis on getting insight from data these days, it's no wonder that R is rapidly rising in popularity. R was designed from day one to handle statistics and data visualization, it's highly extensible with many new packages aimed at solving real-world problems and it's open source (read "free").
If you're ready to learn, we have just the ticket: A free PDF of Computerworld's "Beginner's guide to R."
Included in this 45-page guide:
- Introduction: First steps, including downloading R and RStudio, setting your working directory and installing and using packages.
- Get your data into R: Importing local and remote files, copying data from your clipboard, saving after import.
- Easy ways to do basic data analysis: Examining a data object, seeing basic stats with one line of code, slicing/subsetting your data.
- Painless data visualization: Base R graphics, ggplot2, adding color, exporting graphics.
- Syntax quirks: A few ways in which R is most unlike other programming languages -- learn these and you'll be ready to tackle R's idiosyncrasies. Plus: How to use SQL syntax within R.
- Additional resources: More than 60 recommended websites, videos, blogs, social media/communities, software and books to help you on your R journey.
Sure, it will take more than any single guide to make you an R master. But if you read all the explanations and follow the code, you should be well on your way to using R to get more out of your data.
Download the PDF at the link below. If you are not already part of the Computerworld Insider program, register for free and then download the guide.
Happy learning!