R and RStudio
To start with a clarification: R is the statistical programming language you will use in this course (and which is used by many other scientists). With R you will write tailored scripts and functions to implement your analysis workflow. RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R and other programming languages which makes live a little more convenient. Instead of RStudio one could of course use any kind of text editor but we recommend RStudio especially for beginners (advanced programmers will know what to choose anyway).
R
Some starting points for R:
- To get started with R, download it from r-project.org.
- To get help for a function, use “?” (e.g. “
?printfor functionprint()). - To see what one can do with R, become a regular fellow of the R-bloggers page.
- To find solutions for problems, search the web and look out especially for results hosted at stackoverflow.
Aside from that, the examples provided within this unit are also a good place to start.
RStudio
Some starting points for RStudio:
- To get started with RStudio, download it from rstudio.com.
- To get help, ask the web or have a look at the videos provided by RStudio’s webinars.
To get a brute force introduction to RStudio, this is the video you are looking for:
