Download "Getting Started with the Social Media Analytics Research Toolkit" (pdf, 1.25 megabytes)
Download the Social Media Analytics Research Toolkit
The R programming language was featured about a year ago in a New York Times article (http://bit.ly/iaqQ). I've been an R user since 2000, so I've collected some resources for people who want to get started with R.
The first place to start is the R Project web site at http://www.r-project.org/. Next, you'll actually want to install R itself. There are several options, depending on your environment.
- Linux
- Using your distro's native packages. Most Linux distros either have R available in the base repositores or have it available from external repositories. The advantage of this is that it will be integrated with your package management system. The disadvantages are that you may not get the latest version of R, and there is no uniformity between distros about how R itself is named or how many R libraries are packaged.
- Download a package from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). Select a mirror at http://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html. Then follow the "Linux" link at the top. That will give you packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Suse and Red Hat. Red Hat includes Red Hat Enterprise 4 and 5 plus Fedora. Suse includes both the SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE versions.
- Build from source. Instructions for doing this are at http://cran.fhcrc.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.html
- Windows or MacOS X
- Select a mirror at http://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html.
- Follow the Windows or MacOS X link in the top panel, just under the Linux link.
- On Windows, follow the "base" link and download "R-2.10.1-win32.exe". It's a standard Windows installer, which you just run.
- On MacOS X, download and install "R-2.10.1.dmg"
I usually build R from source on my Linux machines. Once you've got R installed, you should have most of the documentation. But everything is also available on line at http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html. You'll definitely want to read the Introduction at http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.html and the FAQ at http://cran.r-project.org/faqs.html.
Here's a few books on R and statistics / data visualization:
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