2018-12-07
What is R?
R in a nutshell
- a free software for data analysis
- an interpreted programming language, derived from `S-plus’
- initially developed by R. Ihaka and R. Gentleman (1996)
- currently developed by the R Core Team (20 people)
- largest collection of tools for data analysis (1,000s of contributors)
Where can you get it?
- The R project: www.r-project.org
- archiving / distribution network CRAN:
cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html - available on Windows, MacOSX, Linux
What can you do with it?
- basic statistics: statistical tests, linear modelling, multivariate analysis
- spatial statistics: GIS, mapping, clustering
- graph theory: social sciences, network analysis, graph algorithm
- genetics: phylogenetic trees, genetic markers, genomics
- epidemiology!
- much more: see task views cran.r-project.org/web/views/
What does “free” mean?
- Freedom = ability to make informed decisions
- you don’t pay for it
- the code is accessible by anyone
- anyone can use, modify and share the code