The R Book

Preface

R is a high-level language and an environment for data analysis and graphics. The design of R was heavily influenced by two existing languages: Becker, Chambers and Wilks' S and Sussman's Scheme. The resulting language is very similar in appearance to S, but the underlying implementation and semantics are derived from Scheme. This book is intended as an introduction to the riches of the R environment, aimed at beginners and intermediate users in disciplines ranging from science to economics and from medicine to engineering. I hope that the book can be read as a text as well as dipped into as a reference manual. The early chapters assume absolutely no background in statistics or computing, but the later chapters assume that the material in the earlier chapters has been studied. The book covers data handling, graphics, mathematical functions, and a wide range of statistical techniques all the way from elementary classical tests, through regression and analysis of variance and generalized linear modelling, up to more specialized topics such as spatial statistics, multivariate methods, tree models, mixed-effects models and time series analysis. The idea is to introduce users to the assumptions that lie behind the tests, fostering a critical approach to statistical modelling, but involving little or no statistical theory and assuming no background in mathematics or statistics.

Why should you switch to using R when you have mastered a perfectly adequate statistical package already? ...