|
|
- R is a programming language designed for statistical analysis and
- graphics. Since R has been around since 1992, it has developed a large
- community and has over [13 thousand
- packages](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/) publicly
- available. What is really cool about R is that it is an open source
- [GNU](http://www.gnu.org/) project.
-
-
- # R Syntax and Paradigms
-
- The syntax of R is C esk with its use of curly braces. The type
- system of R is similar to Python where it can infer what type you are
- using. This "lazy" type system allows for "faster" development since
- you don't have to worry about declaring types -- this laziness makes
- it harder to debug and read your code. The type system of R is rather
- strange and distinctly different from most other languages. For
- starters, integers are represented as vectors of length 1. These
- things may feel weird at first, but, R's type system is one of the
- things that make it a great tool for manipulating data.
-
- 
-
- Did I mention that arrays start at 1? Technically, the thing which we
- refer to as an array in Java are really vectors in R. Arrays in R are
- data objects which can store data in more than two dimensions. Since R
- tries to follow mathematical notation, indexing starts at 1 -- just
- like in linear algebra. Using zero based indexing makes sense for
- languages like C because the index is used to get at a particular
- memory location from a pointer.
-
- <youtube src="s3FozVfd7q4" />
-
- I don't have the time to go over the basic syntax of R in a single
- blog post; however, I feel that this youtube video does a pretty good
- job.
-
- # R Markdown
-
- One of my favorite aspects of R is its markdown language called Rmd.
- Rmd is essentially markdown which has can have embedded R scripts run
- in it. The Rmd file is compiled down to a markdown file which is
- converted to either a PDF, HTML file, or a slide show using pandoc.
- You can provide options for the pandoc render using a YAMAL header in
- the Rmd file. This is an amazing tool for creating reports and writing
- research papers. The documents which you create are reproducible since
- you can share the source code to it. If the data which you are using
- changes, you simply have to recompile to document to get an updated
- view. You no longer have to re-generate a dozen graphs and update
- figures and statistics across your document.
-
-
- # Resources
-
- - [R for Data Science (Online Book)](https://r4ds.had.co.nz/)
- - [R Studio](https://www.rstudio.com/)
- - [R Official Website](https://www.r-project.org/)
|
