R

Using R

Installation

In this class we will be using the R statistical programming language and the RStudio IDE. Both are free and open source, and you should install both. (If you are feeling fancy or already have a preferred editor/environment for development, you do not have to use RStudio. But it is your responsibility to fill in any gaps that RStudio fills.)

For R, look for the 64 bit "binaries" for your operating system. For RStudio, look for the open source version of RStudio Desktop.

Side note for Linux (Ubuntu and Debian-derivatives)

If you are happy with the versions of R and RStudio provided by your version of Ubuntu or Debian, simply run:

sudo apt-get install r-base-core rstudio

Supplementary Reading

Practical Data Science with R by Zumel and Mount.
The Art of R Programming: A Tour of Statistical Software Design by Matloff. This is a strictly-programming book covering data types, control structures, etc in a very typical way (and has no statistics at all). and would probably be suitable for those who already know a similar language. Older version is available here.
R Graphics Cookbook by Chang.
ggplot2 by Wickham. ggplot2 is an alternative graphics packages which takes a more principled approach than the core graphics, but also uses unusual syntax which takes some getting used to. Available for free from on-campus here.
Advanced R by Wickham.
R Wikibook, useful as a reference.
Springer UseR series, a collection of subject-specific R books by Springer, available free-of-charge to students from on-campus computers.
Unix Text Processing Commands, useful for preprocessing
R short refcard [pdf]
Berkeley R Bootcamp 2015, 11 modules as an introduction to R

Links

R
RStudio
DJIA Daily 2004-2014 downloaded from the Federal Reserve.
DJIA Daily 2004-2014 (simplified).
Google daily prices.
RStudio Keyboard Shortcuts.

Workshops

Workshop 0 (Tue Sept. 8, 5-6pm, Room 210) - getting acquainted with R and RStudio

This will be roughly 1-hour and provide a high-level overview of the workflow of analyzing data with RStudio, meant for those with little-to-no programming experience.

Make sure R and RStudio is installed.
Acquainting yourself with the source and command prompt windows.
R as a (graphing) calculator.
Looking up help.
Loading simple data.
Simple plots.