1 Introduction to R/RStudio
In this part, we will explore R and RStudio as two complementary pieces of software. R is the statistical programming language and RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) to make it easier to use. If you followed the preparation instructions, you must install R first before RStudio, but you will likely never use R on its own. I will provide a little tour around RStudio and how to use basic functions like writing code, installing packages, and finding documentation.
There are other IDEs out there that people prefer to use such as VS Code, but we will be using RStudio as the most common approach. Posit - the company who develop RStudio - are developing a new IDE called Positron which might supersede RStudio at some point, but it is in the early development stages; meaning it is still worth investing in learning how to use RStudio.
1.1 Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of this part, you will be able to:
Navigate and interact with RStudio.
Use an R function and find help documentation.
Install and load R packages.
Assign content to an object.