The art of R programming
tour of statistical software design
by Norman S. Matloff · first published 2011
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Praised as a strong introduction to R that explains the language's general principles, so readers can work out details themselves; recommended for learners who already have some math and statistics background.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
An introduction to the R language for statistical and data-science programming.
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…know some statistics/data analysis (the latter probably being more important). If you haven't done this before, then I suggest that you acquire some data you care about, install R (a good book is the Art of R Programming by Matloff), and start trying to make inferences. And draw graphs. Many, many, many graphs. If you keep at this, finding papers/books and reading theory, and implementing it in your spare time, then…
on “Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon” ↗I am currently reading the "The Art of R programming" by Norman Matloff and it is a good book for R beginners. Some familiarity with maths and stats basic is obviously required though.
on “Try R — A new online course, for free” ↗My favorite intro to R book is The Art of R Programming by Norman Matloff http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Programming-Statistical-Softwa...
on “Free Data Science Books” ↗…includes excellent extended tutorials in python on various topics such as co-routines, discrete-event simulation, and simulation using simpy. He is also the author of a book i highly recommend called "Art of R Programming"
on “R beats Python, R beats Julia, Anyone else wanna challenge R?” ↗…here (John Mount). Yes the book and blog are both by Nina Zumel and John Mount. Obviously my opinion is biased, but here is a bit anyway. "R in Action" is one of our favorite R books (that and "The Art of R Programming"). "Practical Data Science with R" is more about working examples of data science (lots of the grungy tubing steps, how to think about some of the statistical tests, what sort of software to use at…
on “Factors are not first-class citizens in R” ↗…notations), but it is very expressive. I'm not a mathematician, and I've been programming Python for 15 years, but I'd always pick R for its stated problem domain given a choice. I highly recommend "The Art Of R Programming" for learning R as a programming language. The statistical side of things are then easier to layer on top of that.
on “Tools to get started in machine learning” ↗If you are looking for a book, "The Art of R Programming" is (by far) my favorite R book. It explains a lot of the general principles behind the language, so you can figure out details for yourself (in comparison to, for instance, the R Cookbook, which has…
on “R is hot [pdf]” ↗"The Art of R Programming" is very good. https://www.nostarch.com/artofr.htm
on “Half-price Ebooks for Day Against DRM” ↗…while at the same time nonchalantly admitting that they never made a serious attempt to learn it. One symptom of this problem is that hardly any self-proclaimed R hacker has read Matloff's book "The Art of R Programming" which was for a long time, and perhaps still is, the only book on R programming. The mere fact that there is (or was) only one such book speaks volumes.
on “R, the master troll of statistical languages (2012)” ↗There's a new book that seems to be about best practices for writing software in R. It's called 'The Art of R Programming'. I got a review copy but I haven't read it much yet, but the premise is that the book actually focuses on R programming techniques as opposed to introducing statistics using R.
on “R programming for those coming from other languages” ↗…(probably cause I buy it through amazon). Their book quality is amazing, the paper and cover are very nice quality (unlike other publishers >=( ), I bought the learn you some erlang for great good, art of R programming, and the eloquent javascript.
on “Learn You a Haskell for Great Good” ↗