What were your biggest misconceptions or stumbling blocks to getting up and running with R?
Easy. I terms of materials I have been unable to find good books that introduce users to R from the perspective of someone familiar only with packages like SPSS or STATA, or not familiar with statistics packages at all. Even introduction texts use jargon without introducing it.
I think that R-help files should be more thorough than they are, and contain more examples. I thought that STATA help files were sparse! The notion that 'R is a user community and thus they do this in their spare time' is no excuse for those creating new tools for R not developing complete help files. It doesn't take that much time relative to actually creating the new function.
In terms of actual R use - creating, using, and manipulating data are the biggest frustration for those of the 'spreadsheet generation'. I get the impression that one needs to not merely understand, but be fully fluent in the jargon of matrix mathematics to even know what is going on half the time. I find myself - even now - using 'rules of thumb' that 'seemed to work' rather than fully understanding what I am doing. It is particularly discouraging when many of those 'intro books' suggest using something besides R for data manipulation - how clumsy is that!?
I find the actual programming syntax itself is the easiest part to master. It is certainly more flexible - but without a particularly sufficient increase in complexity - than trying to write script in SPSS and STATA.
Brandon Zicha ______________________________________________ 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.
