R for Everyone: Advanced Analytics and Graphics, 2nd Edition

2. The R Environment

Now that R is downloaded and installed, it is time to get familiar with how to use R. The basic R interface on Windows is fairly Spartan, as seen in Figure 2.1. The Mac interface (Figure 2.2) has some extra features and Linux has far fewer, being just a terminal.

Figure 2.1 The standard R interface in Windows.

Figure 2.2 The standard R interface on Mac OS X.

Unlike other languages, R is very interactive. That is, results can be seen one command at a time. Languages such as C++ require that an entire section of code be written, ...