R for Everyone: Advanced Analytics and Graphics (Addison-Wesley Data and Analytics)

Jared does a GREAT job of laying out a foundation for learning to program in R. His commentary is clearly articulated and the code samples are VERY useful for someone that is digging into the system.He hosts sample data that can be extracted for practice and maintains an Errata page. The functionality of the ggplot2 graphics package provides a lot of options and allows the construction of a layered request that makes for easy changes to graphics.What surprised me the most about the author happened when I emailed him a question. At the time, I was not successful when attempting to process a Join that he covers on p144 of the book. (Turns out that I needed to make a specific adjustment to my system.) Within hours of my email, I received an actionable response (the fix) that included additional recommendations. I have since had the pleasure of several additional and insightful exchanges.When I started in SAS (quite a while ago) I often turned to "The Little SAS Book" for ideas. It looks like Jared Lander and his book "R for Everyone" may be my ticket to progressing in R.This is a definite recommend!

To get the negatives out of the way: it's unfortunate that, having invested in appealing graphic design - the book looks just so much nicer than the spartan O'Reilly titles - Addison Wesley have not provided the author with similarly solid editorial support, resulting in a book that definitely feels rushed. There are typos, cosmetic blemishes (one regular annoyance is a table that's too wide for a page - one could fit it using a smaller font, but instead the table ends up split across twice as many rows), a couple of statistical blunders (on pp. 172 and 263), things that could have been left out, things that should have been included (oddly, the chapter on joins never mentions outer joins, and, in fact, does not explain what a join is) - and, finally, time and again, things that should have been explained better. I do not feel that "R for Everyone" is the best available introduction to R, and continue to endorse Robert Kabacoff's high-quality "R in Action" in that capacity.Where "R for Everyone" differs from "R in Action" - and, coming to the positives, where it wins out - is in intermediate-R territory. One important example is coverage of "ggplot2". Whereas "R in Action" discusses the "old school" R graphics, "R for Everyone" goes with "ggplot2", becoming the second popular book (after Winston Chang's "R Graphics Cookbook") to discuss the package - and although its explanation of "ggplot2" syntax is sketchy, the samples found throughout the book do build into a useful "ggplot2" gallery that actually brought me over the fence. "plyr" package, an important data-manipulation aid, is another example, and another "R in Action" no-show. So is "data.table". So is "knitr", used to produce reports. So is "rcpp", used to interface R and C++. So is R package-building. (You will notice that the topics become more advanced. These are introductions rather than substantial explorations, but awareness is a valuable thing). In the book's second half, when discussion moves from R to statistics-with-R, the author continues to manage to find original material; statistical explanations may be brief - this is not a textbook - but examples, and pointers to useful R utilities, are much appreciated.I own just one R book - literally, "The R Book", by Crawley - but "R for Everyone" will be joining it; this has got to be a compliment. Kudos to Jared Lander for writing an original, substantial, useful book.UPD. It's June 2015, and second edition of Robert Kabacoff's "R in Action" is finally out - but the changes are incremental, and my endorsement of "R for Everyone" stands.

The book is outstanding. I was able to work my way through the book fairly quickly and learn R very well. The author provides many data sets that make it easy to follow along with the instructions.The examples are clear and easy to follow, and they work. Most programming books have multiple errors–I read one programming book that had over 100 errata–this book has zero errata.The writing is very easy to read, and the steps build from the very beginning to advanced principles.I met the author at an R conference, his presentation filled with attendees. He is able to make R accessible to non–programmers both in person and in print, and I am a much better user of R thanks to his work!Highest recommendation for R For Everyone!

I'm only through eleven chapters, and my reaction is mixed. I expected wonderful things because of the terrific reviews i'd read. The first nine chapters were easy to read and went quickly. But the book changed dramatically in chapters 10 and 11. Suddenly, they're using functions in examples without describing what the functions do and without listing all of the parameters of the functions and without explaining why we get the results we get instead of, in one case, the results I expected.

I am still a novice in R, though I have used it for a while. I ordered this book because I need a more solid background in R for a major project. This book feels like exactly what I was looking for--like an experienced user sitting beside me helping me along. It is definitely *not* just a rehash of online pdf guides (which can be hard to parse). I am already marking pages that tell me things I never knew but needed to know. And the pacing of information "feels right"--no more than what I need to know, about when I need to know it. Just-released, its time references are as recent as September 2013, and that is important, because the R experience has evolved from something crude but full of possibilities to something much more rich, with an ecosystem of supporting tools. If you are like me, then I think you will really enjoy Jared lander's R for Everyone.

I have developed an interest in data science and had never heard of R. Was taking a data science course on Coursera on R and was just frustrated. Found this book and absolutely love it. Going from not even knowing the language existed to using it was only possible because of this book. My prior programming experience was in Fortran and Basic back in the 60's and 70's. Things have changed a bit since then. I actually write the code from the book mainly to get the syntax correct (and comfortable with it) and use Git to store them all. Hands on experience with a book that has few errors and great examples has worked wonders for me. If you are a newby like me, this is a GREAT book.Carl Sutton, CPA/former Aerospace Engineer

El libro de Lander es una muy buena introducción al lenguaje R. Tiene un estilo sencillo y trae muchos ejemplos para poner en práctica. Todos los datos se puede descargar de la red. Realmente es una muy buena introducción a R ya que aborda desde cuestiones simples como la lectura de datos y estadística descriptiva hasta temas mucho más avanzados como la programación en R o cálculos con estadística inferencial. Tengo varios libros de R, pero si solo fuera a comprar un solo libro sin duda sería éste.

Very informative book. Starts with the very basics of R and then takes you deeply into the topics. Great book for the beginners. Better than most of the other Basic R available online.

I have read many other books on R including the O'Reilly books and the Art of Programming with R and I really think Jared has hit the sweet spot with this one.Using R can be a rewarding and yet frustrating experience. My background is software engineering and not statistics so my learning approach is probably a bit different from a statistician and this book is well written with great examples. Get this book and enjoy the world of R and data analysis.

Excellent book!!!!!

Para aquellos que necesiten ir de 0 a experto. Al terminar el libro deberías de ser capaz de realizar tus scripts de R. Aún estando en inglés es sencillo de seguir y muy completo.