Computation Skills Workshop: Introduction to R for the Python user

Benjamin Soltoff

Overview

Python and R are two of the dominant programming languages used in data science. Python has strong demand within industry, while in many academic fields R is the preferred language. While the flame wars between Python and R users continue to rage, many leading software developers and data science practitioners urge users to learn how to leverage both languages depending on each software’s natural strengths.¹ This workshop is designed for Python users who want to learn how to use R in their work.

Objectives

Review the origins of the R programming language.
Identify the basic elements of R
Distinguish equivalent operations in R from Python
Introduce a common set of packages for data analysis in R

Audience

This workshop is designed for individuals with intermediate-to-advanced training and/or experience in Python (e.g. MACS 30121 and beyond) who have never used R before. Especially useful if you are taking a course which requires you to complete assignments using R.

Location

Room 295 in 1155 E 60th St.

Prework

Register for this workshop. Due to the current public health crisis, all participants must register in advance using this form.
Please sign up for a free RStudio Cloud account.
Once you have created your RStudio Cloud account, join the workshop organization.

Additional Resources

R for Data Engineers: A Brief Introduction for People Who Count From Zero by Greg Wilson
R for Data Science by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund
Advanced R by Hadley Wickham
R for Data Science Online Learning Community
#TidyTuesday

Acknowledgments

This workshop is derived in part from R for Data Engineers: A Brief Introduction for People Who Count From Zero by Greg Wilson and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY-4.0).

Consider this illuminating interview with Hadley Wickham, Chief Scientist at RStudio and an Adjunct Professor of Statistics at the University of Auckland, Stanford University, and Rice University.↩︎

Corrections

If you see mistakes or want to suggest changes, please create an issue on the source repository.

Reuse

Text and figures are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY-NC 4.0. Source code is available at https://github.com/css-skills/intro-to-r-for-python-user, unless otherwise noted. The figures that have been reused from other sources don't fall under this license and can be recognized by a note in their caption: "Figure from ...".

Citation

For attribution, please cite this work as

Soltoff (2022, Jan. 25). Computation Skills Workshop: Introduction to R for the Python user. Retrieved from https://css-skills.uchicago.edu/posts/2022-01-25-introduction-to-r-for-the-python-user/

BibTeX citation

@misc{soltoff2022introduction,
  author = {Soltoff, Benjamin},
  title = {Computation Skills Workshop: Introduction to R for the Python user},
  url = {https://css-skills.uchicago.edu/posts/2022-01-25-introduction-to-r-for-the-python-user/},
  year = {2022}
}

Introduction to R for the Python user