[R] Pros and Cons of R

[K. Elo]

Hi,

Monica Pisica wrote:
 > - There is no perfect “beginner” book.

How about
- Crawley, Michael (2007). The R book, Wiley & Sons.
- Maindonald, John & John Braun (2007): Data Analysis and Graphics Using 
R (2nd edition), Cambridge University Press.

As a political scientist (with programming experience :) ), both books 
have helped me to decide in favour of R instead of SPSS when I had to 
choose the environment for statistical analysis (in Linux). Sadly 
enough, almost all method books written for social scientists take SPSS 
as the standard statistical application and, consequently, teach data 
analysis in a look-for-this-in-SPSS-output-manner. To use R in social 
sciences, one really must learn how R does things: looking for something 
in the output is not enough :)

BTW, does someone happen to know, if there is any R-book written for 
social scientists?

Kind regards,
Kimmo