[R] Request for introductory document

[Baize, Harold]

After 25 years of using SPSS syntax 
I am having some problems adapting to 
R. It would be a huge help for people 
like myself to have an introductory 
help document, like "R for SPSS Users". 
Such a document would jump start SPSS users 
by covering the use of the foreign function 
to read ".sav" files, then show equivalent R 
syntax for the most common SPSS procedures. 

Once I achieve a degree of proficiency with 
R I will attempt to draft the SPSS to R 
help document, but maybe someone out there 
is already able to make it.  

Much of my difficulty as an R novice is 
confusion over data types required by 
functions. Some accept vectors, others 
matrices or data.frames. An SPSS to R 
help document would spell out where the 
".sav" data files, read in as data.frames, 
would need to extract vectors or define 
matrices to apply common functions such 
as aov, t.test, and glm. 

One of the first things I wanted to do 
with R was create bar charts with 95% CI. 
I was very pleased to find barplot2 (in 
gregmisc). Unfortunately I was completely 
stymied when the example used faked CIs! 
The SPSS to R document would walk users 
through such a task, assuming a data.frame 
read in from a ".sav" file.  

A big thank you to all who contribute 
to this great software.

Harold Baize
Butte County Department of Behavior Health 
Youth Services