R Programming for Actuarial Science

1 R : What You Need to Know to Get Started

library(MASS)
library(readxl)

1.1 Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the fundamentals of the R programming language, and the basic tools you will need to use this book; it is therefore an important chapter for readers new to R. The reader is advised, following reading this chapter, to proceed to Chapter 2 which, together with this chapter, forms our introduction to programming in R.

R is an exceptional statistical computing tool which is increasingly used by researchers and students in many disciplines. R is an open-source language which one can use without purchasing a licence, and contribute to solving problems within the vast R community.

This chapter includes most of the topics we feel are crucial for new users to understand, although there are several important ideas not covered which are gradually introduced throughout the book. Hence the relatively short length of this chapter.

From our experience of teaching R programming, we find it is usually beneficial for the typical student new to R to be made aware of the key points (such as those included in this chapter), proceeding relatively quickly onto practising writing R code in realistic settings, returning to this chapter as a reference guide. We would expect most readers to gain less from an extended period of solely studying the basics of R.

This chapter will show you how to start using the R/RStudio package for basic tasks. A particularly good introduction ...