Workshop on the R System - Preparation

These notes are intended for anyone planning to attend one of the R course that I run from time to time, or wanting to test the water for possible attendance at such a course.

In preparation for the Course

Copy down the R binary, install it on your machine, start up R, and start typing!
Click here to obtain R

Windows users: Click on R binaries | windows | base and follow instructions.

Other systems: Click on whatever is appropriate in place of windows

See also the document Installation of R, of R packages, and editor environments

What should I type?

> 1+1
This may suggest some other possibilities!
> demo() Gives a list of demos that can be tried
> demo(graphics) Show off the graphics. Press the ENTER key to display the first graph,
and to display each successive graph.
> example(plot) As before, press the ENTER key to display each new graph.

Packages that should be installed

Laptop users should, after installing R, install also the packages DAAG, DAAGxtras and Rcmdr. Ideally, install also ggplot2.

Other packages to which there may be reference include dichromat, fortunes, scatterplot3d and schoolmath. For longer courses (2 days or more), it may be useful, depending on the focus of the course, to install ade4, ape (requires gee), lme4 and randomForest.

DVDs and memory sticks will however be available at the course from which it will be possible to install, from R-2.7.0 or R-2.7.1, any packages that are lacking. Additionally, these DVDs will include an R executable that has relevant packages already installed. Once the DVD is in a computer's DVD drive, R can be run from the DVD.

If you start up R with a live internet connection, packages can be installed from the menu. You will need to select a repository; In Australia, choose an Australian repository. Alternatively, packages can be installed from the command line. For Rcmdr, a suitable command is:
  install.packages("Rcmdr", dependencies=TRUE)
The R commander has many dependencies, indirect as well as direct. Unless you have a fast internet connection, this may take some time.

What next?

Work through chapters 1 and 2, and preferably also chapter 3, of the document
http://www.maths.anu.edu.au/~johnm/courses/r/notes/rnotes1-24.pdf

Click here to get the scripts

Other free sources of information on R

Copy down an introductory document, and start working through it. Go to http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/CRAN
and click on Documentation to see some of the possibilities.

Try, perhaps, R for Beginners (Emmanuel Paradis), and see how you go!

Do you have data that you are happy to expose to wider view?

Contact the presenter with the details. Data that have been used for a published paper may be especially suitable.

Links

Web site for R (CRAN = Comprehensive R Archive Network)

John Maindonald's web site

email: john.maindonald AT anu.edu.au