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Heavy R user here. When I was starting out, this: http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Short-refcard.pdf http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Short-refcard.pd

by etrain 15y ago

Heavy R user here. When I was starting out, this: http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Short-refcard.pdf http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Short-refcard.pdf was a savior and goes well with this piece. As others have mentioned, getting into the useful data structures and libraries is the next step here, because those are what makes R great. The book "R in a Nutshell" is a nice desktop reference, and the CRAN Task Views for your domain are a pretty helpful jumping off point: http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/ http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/ The R mailing list and Stack Overflow communities are also a tremendous resources.

disgruntledphd2 15y ago
While I agree on the R mailing list and StackOverflow (subscribe for r on the RSS feed) i would respectfully suggest that you ignore R in a Nutshell. While it does have some interesting worked examples and some good explanation, the book is essentially a commented version of the R introductory manuals. The refcard is wonderful though. Personally, I found R bloggers really useful, just reading through all the articles is a nice way to learn the packages and tricks of the language (some of the code on the R help mailing list is also extremely useful here). In terms of short, concise, wonderful books Data Manipulation with R is a favourite. Its only 150 pages, but it describes how to move your data from one form to another in the best and easiest ways. The SQL stuff and the regular expressions might already be known to the people here, but some of the material on dates, times and general reshaping of data was extremely useful (to me at least). R is not strong in this area, IMO and its nice to see some guidance in this area, as R packages often have funky data shape requirements.
- etrain 15y ago
  Fair enough - I've had some good experience pointing new R users to R in a Nutshell - but maybe Data Manipulation with R is better. Haven't used it and will take a look. One invaluable resource I forgot to point out was: http://www.statmethods.net/ http://www.statmethods.net/ Very concise, directed pages that help you understand common/acceptable ways to do specific things. For plotting, I usually skip the base R plots and go with ggplot2.
- stcredzero 15y ago
  While it does have some interesting worked examples This sounds good! and some good explanation, Also sounds good. the book is essentially a commented version of the R introductory manuals. The question that comes to mind: exactly how good are the comments?
  - disgruntledphd2 15y ago
    They are reasonably good. Its definitely not a bad book, but its not one I would recommend as almost all of the information it gives is in the manuals. If you have programming experience, you're better off reading the manuals. I didn't when I started learning R, but even then I felt somewhat cheated by the reams and reams of man pages included with a text which I had paid for.

by etrain 15y ago

disgruntledphd2 15y ago

While I agree on the R mailing list and StackOverflow (subscribe for r on the RSS feed) i would respectfully suggest that you ignore R in a Nutshell. While it does have some interesting worked examples and some good explanation, the book is essentially a commented version of the R introductory manuals. The refcard is wonderful though. Personally, I found R bloggers really useful, just reading through all the articles is a nice way to learn the packages and tricks of the language (some of the code on the R help mailing list is also extremely useful here). In terms of short, concise, wonderful books Data Manipulation with R is a favourite. Its only 150 pages, but it describes how to move your data from one form to another in the best and easiest ways. The SQL stuff and the regular expressions might already be known to the people here, but some of the material on dates, times and general reshaping of data was extremely useful (to me at least). R is not strong in this area, IMO and its nice to see some guidance in this area, as R packages often have funky data shape requirements.

etrain 15y ago
Fair enough - I've had some good experience pointing new R users to R in a Nutshell - but maybe Data Manipulation with R is better. Haven't used it and will take a look. One invaluable resource I forgot to point out was: http://www.statmethods.net/ http://www.statmethods.net/ Very concise, directed pages that help you understand common/acceptable ways to do specific things. For plotting, I usually skip the base R plots and go with ggplot2.
stcredzero 15y ago
While it does have some interesting worked examples This sounds good! and some good explanation, Also sounds good. the book is essentially a commented version of the R introductory manuals. The question that comes to mind: exactly how good are the comments?
- disgruntledphd2 15y ago
  They are reasonably good. Its definitely not a bad book, but its not one I would recommend as almost all of the information it gives is in the manuals. If you have programming experience, you're better off reading the manuals. I didn't when I started learning R, but even then I felt somewhat cheated by the reams and reams of man pages included with a text which I had paid for.