R and R Studio

Overview

R is a programming language and computing environment specialized for statistical analysis and data manipulation. It’s commonly used for performing statistical tests, creating data visualizations, and writing data analysis reports. Despite focusing on statistics, it’s a full-fledged programming language, and relatively easy to learn.

You should have gotten R and R studio install on the first data of SDS 100. If you did not, please follow the guide here.

Common Settings

There are a few settings I recommend changing in R studio to make the process of working with it a little easier. In the top bar, click on Tools > Global Options and modify the following.

  1. Under General > Basic > Workspace, disable “Restore .RData into workspace at startup.”
  2. Under General > Basic > Workspace, set “Save workspace to .RData on exit” to Never.
  3. Under Code > Editing, enable “Soft-wrap R source files.”
  4. Under Code > Display, enable “Show Margin” with “Margin Column” set to 80.
  5. Under Code > Display, enable “Highlight R Function Calls.”
  6. Under Code > Display, enable “Rainbow Parenthesis.”
  7. Under Code > Display >, enable “Enable preview of named colors and hexadecimal colors.”
  8. Under R Markdown > Basic, disable “Show output inline for all R Markdown documents.”
  9. Under R Markdown > Visual, disable “Use visual editor by default for new documents.”
  10. Under Appearance, pick a theme you like!
  11. [WIN ONLY] Under Terminal > General, set “New terminals open with” to “Bash” (You can only do this after you complete the install guide 0: Windows Subsystem for Linux)