2022-05-16

Programming with Data in R

1:30 - 2:50 - Setup: Installation of R and RStudio

  • First Example

  • Some R basics

3:00 - 4:30

  • the tidy verse

  • examples with the tidyverse

What is R? … and what does it do?

R is …

R is …

  • Free to use
  • Extensible
    • 18586 user contributed add-on packages currently on CRAN (The Comprehensive R Archive Network) (as of 2022-05-16)
    • at least as many packages on github repositories
  • Powerful
    • With the right tools, get more work done, faster.
  • Flexible
    • Not a question of can, but how.
  • Frustrating
    • Flexibility comes at a cost (easy to shoot yourself in the foot!).

R does …

  • Graphics, statistics, machine learning, etc.
  • Data acquisition, munging, management
  • Literate programming (dynamic reports)
  • Web applications

We will touch on all of these aspects. Slides and material are available at http://heike.github.io/summerschool-2022

Installing R

  • Make sure to have R version 4.x.x installed

  • Go to http://www.r-project.org/

  • Click the CRAN link on the left, and pick a download site (0-Cloud is a good choice)

  • Choose link based on your OS

  • On Windows, choose the “base” subdirectory to install R.

  • On OS X, choose the .pkg file to install R.

Installing RStudio

  • RStudio-2022 supports both R and python (Jupyter notebooks)

  • Browse to https://www.rstudio.com/

  • Mouse over Products and click RStudio

  • Choose RStudio Desktop

  • Click Download RStudio Desktop

  • Choose the installer appropriate for your platform

RStudio is …

  • an excellent IDE for R (and python)

From Julie Lowndes:

If R were an airplane, RStudio would be the airport, providing many, many supporting services that make it easier for you, the pilot, to take off and go to awesome places. Sure, you can fly an airplane without an airport, but having those runways and supporting infrastructure is a game-changer.

The RStudio IDE

RStudio after opening

The RStudio IDE

  1. Source editor
    • Docking station for multiple files
    • Useful shortcuts (“Knit”)
    • Highlighting/Tab-completion
    • Code-checking (R, HTML, JS)
    • Debugging features
  2. Console window
    • Highlighting/Tab-completion
    • Search recent commands
  3. Other tabs/panes
    • Graphics
    • R documentation
    • Environment pane
    • File system navigation/access
    • Tools for package development, git, etc

Following along

Starting RStudio

Start here by double-clicking the RStudio project

  • Double-click the RStudio project Start-here.Rproj

Projects in RStudio

Rstudio project

  • projects in RStudio allow easy start of an R session

  • keep track of all relevant files (R history, data, profile, …)

  • set the working directory to the current directory

  • keep track of settings for next time …

  • … double-click folder 01-Introducton-to-R

Navigate to the right file

Hello R Markdown!

  • File -> New File -> R Markdown -> OK -> Knit HTML

What is R Markdown?

R Markdown is an authoring format that enables easy creation of dynamic documents, presentations, and reports from R. It combines the core syntax of markdown (an easy-to-write plain text format) with embedded R code chunks that are run so their output can be included in the final document. R Markdown documents are fully reproducible (they can be automatically regenerated whenever underlying R code or data changes).