[R] Wanted: online Introduction to R

[Prof Brian Ripley]

> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 15:03:08 +0000
> From: Clive Jenkins <clive.jenkins at clara.net>
> X-Accept-Language: en
> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: [R] Wanted: online Introduction to R
> 
> As a complete newcomer I am attempting to learn to use R, but am finding
> it extremely difficult because I have not yet found an "Introduction to
> R".
> 
> For over a week now I have monitored the R-help list, studied the R-FAQ
> and related documents, downloaded and run the Windows R and looked at
> the Help, downloaded early and late samples of the R-help archives, and
> searched for illuminating articles in online journals, all with little
> success.
> 
> The R documentation appears to be quite good, but it does assume the
> reader already understands the basics of the language. I had hoped to
> find, at least, a terse definition of the language syntax with some
> description of the semantics.
> 
> Can anybody please assist?

Can you tell us what you have read? There are the R-notes on CRAN which
appear to be closest to you want, although they are unreliable in part
(as they are only partially converted from S notes).  There is an R
Language reference manual in (private as yet) draft, but it is not at
all for beginners.

Bill Venables and I have a book (see the CRAN page) and on-line
complements for R, and another more formal book in press.  We offer no
apologies for this having a cost: the effort involved was very considerable.
For that reason, I do not expect that the sort of material you may
be looking for will ever be available (legally) for free.

How to document R is an important issue for the Core Team, but one that
may need R to become stabler first. (It is still in beta, and in
detail changing very rapidly as we find things are not as we would
like.)  However `a terse definition of the language syntax with some
description of the semantics' does not sound like an `Introduction to R'
to me, and so we are genuinely interested to understand your comments more.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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