Chapter 4 The Basics

If you’re like most people, you think of R as a statistics program. However, while R is definitely the coolest, most badass, pirate-y way to conduct statistics – it’s not really a program. Rather, it’s a programming language that was written by and for statisticians. To learn more about the history of R…just…you know…Google it.

Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentlemen. You have these two pirates to thank for creating R! You might not think much of them now, but by the end of this book there's a good chance you'll be dressing up as one of them on Halloween.

Figure 4.1: Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentlemen. You have these two pirates to thank for creating R! You might not think much of them now, but by the end of this book there’s a good chance you’ll be dressing up as one of them on Halloween.

In this chapter, we’ll go over the basics of the R language and the RStudio programming environment.