What is R and Rstudio?

What is R and Rstudio?

What is R?

“R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics.” https://www.r-project.org/about.html In short, R is a language that allows you to manipulate, analyze, and visualize data. A benefit of R, is that it is free and open source, meaning anyone can develop their own packages that include custom code for very specific tasks. We’ll touch more on R functions and packages shortly, but first lets introduce Rstudio.

What is Rstudio?

Rstudio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) specifically catered for R. In essence, Rstudio is a software that is tailor-made to run the R language with several major quality of life features that make coding in R much easier. Both R and Rstudio are 100% free for you to download and use on your own device.

Installing R

To install R you will need to download and install the respective software from https://cran.r-project.org/ At the top of that page, there are download links for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Install the latest R version and you can then begin to run R on your computer!

Installing Rstudio

After you have installed R, you can install Rstudio on your device by downloading it from https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/ and following the installation wizard.

An R alternative in your Browser

Alternatively, you can use RStudio in your browser by navigating to https://posit.cloud/content/yours?sort=name_asc. While there are minor differences between RStudio and rstudio.cloud, I have made sure the course can operate through either platform. Take note, that rstudio.cloud does have a limit on how much you can use the free version.