[R] Fw: How to learn R language?

[Roland Rau]

Ajay ohri wrote:
>    - go with Bob and Peter's book. Too many sources can be confusing.
>    - Join the list, create filters for keywords of your specialty (like from
>    R -Help ) contains regression.
>    - Try use it for a live project .

I think this is really very good advice:
- 2 books (I would recommend Peter Dalgaard's and Modern Applied 
Statistics by Venables/Ripley)
- the R-help list is very, very valuable
- most importantly: use it for some real project

Please let me add two more things:
- the road is long. Even after years using it exclusively as your 
statistical language/package of choice, there are still surprises around 
the corner (at least it happens to me, just discovered '.bquote' a few 
weeks ago)
- have an open mind. For example, if you have a background in SPSS, 
Excel, ... but not in general purpose programming languages, you might 
be surprised that your data don't have to be in rectangular shape. In my 
experience this is one of the first obstacles for students with a social 
science background.
- You get often world-class help and advice *for free* on the r-help 
list. So please read the posting guide before posting questions to the 
r-help list. This will save you some answer which might appear to be 
rude (but usually answer your question anyway).

I hope this helps you further,
Roland