[R] Choice of text for intermediate level R programming course

[Harris Butler]

I recommend The Art of R Programming: A Tour of Statistical Software
Design, by Norman Matloff, No Starch Press.  It is only 40 bucks so
your students will appreciate that.  As far as content goes, it covers
just about everything, you can view a sample chapter, detailed ToC,
and index at the website: http://nostarch.com/artofr.htm.  The only
drawback to using it as a textbook is that it doesn't contain any
excercises, so you would have to create your own.  I think that the no
exercises drawback is an acceptable price to pay considering the
quality of the book.

Here's some anecdotal evidence for you:  I used R for my M.S. thesis
and at first I spent my time searching on the internet for how to do
things in R.  When I found this book, I took some time off from my
thesis work and chugged through the book full time- I think it would
take a full semester in a 3 hour course.  After getting through the
book I found that I wasn't worrying about R anymore and I could
concentrate on the intellectual part of my work.  I won't say that
content of my thesis was that great but the code worked and I managed
to finish on time.

--

Cheers,

Harris Butler


On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 5:43 PM, William Grove <grove001 at umn.edu> wrote:
>
> The Subject line mostly says it.  I'm designing it as a semester-long, 3
> hours per week, course
> that takes in students who got the basics of R in stats classes, but don't
> really know how to
> program in it.  Translation:  if their own examples don't look enough like
> examples from
> previous work, they're stumped.
>
> Does anybody have a text for an intermediate R course (but not too
> highbrow, no "total guide
> to object oriented programming, and class s3 vs. s4 objects), they would
> recommend.  I
> read 24 books some ielementary some advance not many intermediate, and I
> have two I
> like but for quite difference reasons.  I won't name them so as not to
> prejudice anybody.
>
> It needs to be English language and I greatly prefer a good index like
> \LaTeX\ produces
> by the makeindex() prograrm.
>
> Regards,
> William Grove
>
> --
> William M. Grove, Ph.D.
> Psychology Department
> University of Minnesota
>
> My public encryption key.is:
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