Honestly what I remember as the most difficult thing when I 'first' started using R was figuring out how to read in my own datasets. I eventually discovered the R import/export manual, but somehow this alluded me initially. All the R "tutorials" I was working from simply "generated" data or used the built in datasets, and "I" was ready to work on my own datasets.
The things that led from "frustration" to "independence" was understanding the difference between data types like matrix and dataframe and learning there were commands to tell what you were working with at any given time. Did the data read in as character, numeric, or factor, etc. Commands like: str, class, mode, ls, search, help, help.search, etc can help you figure out what you are doing. Rob -----Original Message----- From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Burns Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 11:31 AM To: r-help@r-project.org Subject: [R] two questions for R beginners * What were your biggest misconceptions or stumbling blocks to getting up and running with R? * What documents helped you the most in this initial phase? I especially want to hear from people who are lazy and impatient. Feel free to write to me off-list. Definitely write off-list if you are just confirming what has been said on-list. -- Patrick Burns pbu...@pburns.seanet.com http://www.burns-stat.com (home of 'The R Inferno' and 'A Guide for the Unwilling S User') ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
