[R] two questions for R beginners

[Clint Bowman]

I started using statistical software with the commercial product S+ 
when I obtained a new HP735 workstation.  We kept the S+ license 
going for a number of years until I heard about R.  It was an easy 
transition and because I have been proficient in fortran and perl, 
the scripting came naturally--except for some syntax 
similarities/differences between perl and R interacting with a 
natural tendency towards dyslexia.

I especially like that I can slice and dice the data to ferret out 
relationships e.g., concentration by hour of day, by month, by wind 
speed, by wind direction--love those boxplots.

I also find that even the default settings produce some pretty 
attractive plots that are useable in many settings--I've also 
produced some pretty awful ones.

And the price always reminds me that I need to find every way 
possible to contribute to the overall good--I've forgotten too much 
of my fortran and C programming skills to contribute directly to 
the R Project.

Clint

-- 
Clint Bowman			INTERNET:	clint at ecy.wa.gov
Air Quality Modeler		INTERNET:	clint at math.utah.edu
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On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Ralf B wrote:

> My biggest blocker was my misconception that R is extremely difficult
> to start with. It is powerful and one can do very complicated things (
> that consequently turn things  complicated) but it comes with very
> nice defaults and one can produce great results with standard tasks in
> very little time - especially if one has done programming and/or
> scripting before.
>
> I pushed it away for too long that way. I wish I would have used it
> years ago and avoided SPSS altogether - must have wasted 100s of hours
> doing repetitive tasks by click and partial scripts in SPSS. Not to
> mention a horrible license policy and a visualization unit that is
> simply embarrassing for a product that is in its 18th or 19th version.
>
> Ralf
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Tal Galili <tal.galili at gmail.com> wrote:
>> My biggest stumbling blocks to getting up and running with R was whenever I
>> was lazy and impatient.
>>
>> The more you love R, the more it loves you back.
>>
>> Tal
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------------Contact
>> Details:-------------------------------------------------------
>> Contact me: Tal.Galili at gmail.com |  972-52-7275845
>> Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) |
>> www.r-statistics.com (English)
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 7:31 PM, Patrick Burns <pburns at pburns.seanet.com>wrote:
>>
>>> * What were your biggest misconceptions or
>>> stumbling blocks to getting up and running
>>> with R?
>>>
>>> * What documents helped you the most in this
>>> initial phase?
>>>
>>> I especially want to hear from people who are
>>> lazy and impatient.
>>>
>>> Feel free to write to me off-list.  Definitely
>>> write off-list if you are just confirming what
>>> has been said on-list.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Patrick Burns
>>> pburns at pburns.seanet.com
>>> http://www.burns-stat.com
>>> (home of 'The R Inferno' and 'A Guide for the Unwilling S User')
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>