Introduction to Machine Learning with R

Preface

In this short introduction, I tackle a few key points.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is ideally suited for people who have some working knowledge of the R programming language. If you don’t have any knowledge of R, it’s an easy enough language to pick up, and the code is readable enough that you can pretty much get the gist of the code examples herein.

Scope of the Book

This book is an introductory text, so we don’t dive deeply into the mathematical underpinnings of every algorithm covered. Presented here are enough of the details for you to discern the difference between a neural network and, say, a random forest at a high level.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context.

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Note

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