R is a powerful open source (free) software for statistical computing and graphics.

Rsrcshot1Rscrnshot2

Why use R?

  1. Data Analysts Captivated by R's Power
  2. R is used by majority of academic statisticians.
  3. R is platform independent meaning it is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  4. R has the best help resources both online (just google any issue/question) and using help(...), e.g. help(lm).
  5. R has the best graphics.
  6. R is not a black box software, i.e., you can trace how a function or package works by following the R script, e.g. lm()
  7. Companies using R.

RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R. It’s basically a nice front-end for R, giving you a console, a scripting window, a graphics window, and an R workspace, among other options.

Install R and RStudio on Windows

  1. Download R from http://cran.us.r-project.org/ (click on “Download R for Windows” > “base” > “Download R 3.x.x for Windows”)
  2. Install R. Leave all default settings in the installation options.
  3. Download RStudio from http://rstudio.org/download/desktop and install it. Leave all default settings in the installation options.
  4. Open RStudio.

Install R and RStudio on Mac OS X

  1. Download R from http://cran.us.r-project.org/ (click on “Download R for Mac OS X” > “R-3.x.x.pkg (latest version)”)
  2. Install R.
  3. Download RStudio from http://rstudio.org/download/desktop.
  4. Install RStudio by dragging the application icon to your Applications folder.
  5. Open RStudio.

Additional Resources

  1. Code School a web based and interactive introduction for R. R installation is not required  http://tryr.codeschool.com/
  2. Google developers created these short videos (< 5 mins long per video) introducing R. http://goo.gl/EefNFc
  3. Introducing R to a non-programmer in one hour.
  4. "Practical Regression and Anova using R" by Julian Faraway