Hands-On Programming with R: Write Your Own Functions and Simulations 1st Edition

When learning a language, it is important to get to the point of being able to write nontrivial programs in it. For that you need to master a useful subset of the language. After getting there, you can deepen your knowledge as you continue to write code and to study.Compared to other programming languages that I know, I have found it harder to get to that place of knowing a useful subset of R. This is partly because I've never made it a high priority, but also because there seemed to be something unintuitive about the language (especially compared to Python, the language that I use most). I would occasionally pick up a book on R but rapidly lose interest in a day or two, and then rapidly forgetting much of what I had learned.But then recently I started reading the book "Doing Bayesian Data Analysis" by John Kruschke, which makes heavy use of R. This motivated me to try once again to learn some R. In one chapter, Kruschke introduces Markov Chain Monte Carlo. He discusses the Metropolis algorithm through a toy example involving matching the distribution of a finite discrete distribution. When I read that chapter I quickly wrote a Python script which reproduced the simulation. But it occurred to me that to fully enter into the spirit of Kruschke's book, I should write the simulation in R. I put Kruschke's book to the side, ordered this book from Amazon, and then plowed through it in a week. Today (just 10 days after getting the book) I was able to write a working MCMC model in R.Pros and cons of the book itself:Pros: It has a nice discussion of vectors, matrices, lists, and data frames. In some of my previous brief forays into R, I never got to the point of having a really clear mental model as to just how those data structures related to each other. I found his discussions of attributes particularly helpful. His choice of a deck of cards as a data frame struck me as contrived at first but it was effective in giving a basic orientation in how data frames work. The third part, where the author got into programming proper, was the most interesting part, and I found the slot machine example interesting.Cons: It is pricey for its size (200 pages + appendices), especially given the lack of proper proof-reading. This was close to a deal breaker for me, but I had resolved to learn enough R to write a MCMC simulation and wanted to do so before I returned to the other book. The chapter on environments seemed a bit of a stretch. Using closures to maintain the state of a deck strikes me as baroque, though maybe that is just the Python programmer in me. Furthermore, I suspect that people who are coming to programming for the first time would find that chapter mystifying.On the whole I was happy with the book. I find myself vacillating between giving it 4 stars or 5 stars. I'm in a good mood today, so I'll give it 5.

Wanna learn R, I strongly recommend this book over any online tutorial.

Another great resource for learning R. While it is frustrating that all these books cover the same basic information they all cover it slightly differently. This book coming from the RStudio's chief trainer is a well designed book which covers many aspects not covered as well as other books.R as a programing language has also evolved so much over the past 5 years that I find that the newer books are a better start for beginners, not that the classics should be skipped. This book has a cleaner narrower focus and is a great fit for someone new to R. It uses less libraries and the libraries it uses are clean and make working with R easier. Also I couldn't imagine working with R without using RStudio and this book also shows short cuts on the language's best IDE that is free for personal use.My suggestion is that someone with little to no experience programing should maybe get two books to learn R. 1) R for Everyone by Jared P. Lander (Though the font for the code in Kindle is frustrating because it doesn't show symbols correctly unless you copy and paste the code!) 2) Hands-On Programming with R by Garrett Gromlemund. Than after under standing these books and maybe doing a few free online courses get 1) The Art of R Programming by Norman Matloff and 2) R in Action by Robert Kabacoff (Only available for sale at the publishers website for the EBook)What I want is a second book on using Hadley Wickham's libraries as a second book. Using Reshape2, ddplyr, tidyr, stringr, tidyr, ggplot2, ggvis and shiny.

The author walks you through multiple exercises to assist in learning, and does so in an interesting way with little bits of humor throughout. Great book to learn from, not dry like a text book.

Bought this with other R books. This is something you need as a foundation to build up your R skills.

It was literally like new

This book is excellent to learn R.

Very practical. Step by step of instructions on how to build a interesting program. I learned a lot of useful tricks from this book. Thank you Mr. Grolemund