WHAT IS R Studio?
R is the open-source statistical language that seems poised to “take over the world” of statistics and
data science. R is really more than a statistical package – it is a language or an environment designed
to potentiate statistical analysis and production of high quality graphics (for more on information see
www.r-project.org/about/html).
Originally developed by two statisticians at the University of Auckland as a dialect of the S statistical language,
since 1997 the development of R has been overseen by a core team of some 20 professional statisticians (for
more on information see www.r-project.org/contributors/html).
Many new users find that R is initially hard to use. One needs to learn to write code, and there are no (or
few) menu tools to make the process easier. In fact, when a grad school friend first excitedly described R to
me in 2004 my first thought was “Why would I want to learn that?”. I dabbled in R several times following
that, but was put off by the difficulties I encountered. I finally began using R in earnest as an environment
for some simulation modeling, and then later for statistical and graphical work
R Studio is a free, open-source software program for statistical analysis, based on the S language.
WHAT IS R STUDIO?
RStudio is a free, open source IDE (integrated development environment) for R. (You must install R before you can install RStudio.) Its interface is organized so that the user can clearly view graphs, data tables, R code, and output all at the same time. It also offers an Import-Wizard-like feature that allows users to import CSV, Excel, SAS (*.sas7bdat), SPSS (*.sav), and Stata (*.dta) files into R without having to write the code to do so.
WHY USE R Studio?
- Free and open source.
- Available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.
- Publication-quality graphs.
- Rivals SAS and Stata availability of advanced statistical methods and algorithms through the availability of user-created packages.
- Packages for literate statistical programming – weaving written reports and analysis code in one document.