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Learn R two minutes at a time

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Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#21

Post by [deleted] »

aggronn wrote: post #19
alister wrote: post #17

I might be interested in learning R if I knew what it was. Even the webpage doesn't explain what it is until you watch one of the videos. I see this all the time on software-related websites. They launch into the technical details without even one sentence about what it is. I could give a whole bunch of examples here but I think everyone has experienced this. Please include something like the following on the webpage…

Unless you're doing in-depth statistical analysis, there's not really any reason to know anything about R. It isn't a useful general purpose language. That is to say, while your suggestion is certainly valid and appreciable, the reason why there are rarely primers for content about R (specifically) is that the intended audience is primarily academic, where the audience is already familiar with the technology. if you…

[deleted]

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#22

Post by nilliams »

gaving wrote: post #2

http://www.screenr.com/7wp8 what... just happened

Haha, that one's especially amazing. He definitely seems to be using the 'Zero Punctuation' style of dictation. (Write it all down in advance, then just read it out all at once without respecting natural pauses etc later). It is hilarious, and surprisingly engaging :)

Zero Punctuation: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation (language is NSFW).

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#23

Post by oops »

dave1619 wrote: post #10

This is great. I love the concept of 2 minutes... it forces the author to really be concise and get to the point. Anybody know of any tutorials like this for web programming (javacript, rails, or python)?

The http://www.destroyallsoftware.com screencasts are great. A bit longer but still nice and dense. Both Ruby and Python plus other random stuff. Totally worth a look if you haven't already seen them.

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#24

Post by stfu »

alister wrote: post #17

I might be interested in learning R if I knew what it was. Even the webpage doesn't explain what it is until you watch one of the videos. I see this all the time on software-related websites. They launch into the technical details without even one sentence about what it is. I could give a whole bunch of examples here but I think everyone has experienced this. Please include something like the following on the webpage…

The 3 minute tutorial idea is nice. But the problem of the videos are that the author seems to expect already the viewer to have an idea for an applied project.

For someone who just wants to play with it (apparently OP & me), the structure looks extremely un-inviting. I would love to see some project or research problem as early as possible in the process and not entertain myself with juicy videos such as "how to handle NA (missing values) in r: understand and detect NA, remove NA, replace NA with 0" without knowing what when where and why I can apply that.

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#25

Post by h84ru3a »

aggronn wrote: post #19
alister wrote: post #17

I might be interested in learning R if I knew what it was. Even the webpage doesn't explain what it is until you watch one of the videos. I see this all the time on software-related websites. They launch into the technical details without even one sentence about what it is. I could give a whole bunch of examples here but I think everyone has experienced this. Please include something like the following on the webpage…

Unless you're doing in-depth statistical analysis, there's not really any reason to know anything about R. It isn't a useful general purpose language. That is to say, while your suggestion is certainly valid and appreciable, the reason why there are rarely primers for content about R (specifically) is that the intended audience is primarily academic, where the audience is already familiar with the technology. if you…

But couldn't R have applications in business (industry)?

A businessperson once asked me about R after he read a non-technical article about it in a major newspaper. This person has never been in academia. Why was he curious? What could he possibly see in R?

I see R as a "disruptor" to the market that SPSS has had under lock and key for as long as I can remember. Perhaps statistics has utility outside of academics? Maybe R can give anyone the power of something like SPSS, for free.

Now what I want to know is how to convert "screenr" into a more open format. Can you convert to video? R is not dependent on a GUI. Maybe you could convert to screen(1) format, along with an mp3.

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#26

Post by aggronn »

h84ru3a wrote: post #25
aggronn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're doing in-depth statistical analysis, there's not really any reason to know anything about R. It isn't a useful general purpose language. That is to say, while your suggestion is certainly valid and appreciable, the reason why there are rarely primers for content about R (specifically) is that the intended audience is primarily academic, where the audience is already familiar with the technology. if you…

But couldn't R have applications in business (industry)? A businessperson once asked me about R after he read a non-technical article about it in a major newspaper. This person has never been in academia. Why was he curious? What could he possibly see in R? I see R as a "disruptor" to the market that SPSS has had under lock and key for as long as I can remember. Perhaps statistics has utility outside of academics? Ma…

Certainly it does. Perhaps I shouldn't have emphasized academics so much.

Anyone who does in-depth statistical analysis can use R. It is equivalent to SPSS, SAS, and matlab in its applicability, plus its free.

People involved in 'big data' and serious analytics in business are already using R a lot of the time. The other group of people in business who use the closed source applications above, however, aren't as technical, and have a pretty big roadblock ahead of them.

The issue is just a question about ease of use. There are companies out there who offer products that compare with the above (http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/), but they still cost money. The 'problem' of R in business is that there aren't any good GUI's for it that allow you to just go menu>ANOVA>3 way factorial>[settings dialog]>Calculate and then get there.

Of course there are a few other reasons why those other applications exist and thrive in spite of R, but I think the limited use cases and lack of a comprehensive GUI are its biggest roadblocks.

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#27

Post by socratic »

alister wrote: post #17

I might be interested in learning R if I knew what it was. Even the webpage doesn't explain what it is until you watch one of the videos. I see this all the time on software-related websites. They launch into the technical details without even one sentence about what it is. I could give a whole bunch of examples here but I think everyone has experienced this. Please include something like the following on the webpage…

If this post wasn't on Hacker News, how would someone reach this page without knowing what R is? Would you expect a JavaScript tutorial page to explain what JavaScript is? Or a statistics tutorial page to explain what statistics is?

More broadly, your suggestion makes a lot of sense for websites about software projects. For example, the R software project page (the first hit if you Google for "r") says that R is "a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics." However, when would anyone seek out a set of tutorials about something without knowing (at least at the one sentence summary level) what that thing is in the first place?

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#28

Post by h84ru3a »

aggronn wrote: post #26
h84ru3a wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But couldn't R have applications in business (industry)? A businessperson once asked me about R after he read a non-technical article about it in a major newspaper. This person has never been in academia. Why was he curious? What could he possibly see in R? I see R as a "disruptor" to the market that SPSS has had under lock and key for as long as I can remember. Perhaps statistics has utility outside of academics? Ma…

Certainly it does. Perhaps I shouldn't have emphasized academics so much. Anyone who does in-depth statistical analysis can use R. It is equivalent to SPSS, SAS, and matlab in its applicability, plus its free. People involved in 'big data' and serious analytics in business are already using R a lot of the time. The other group of people in business who use the closed source applications above, however, aren't as tech…

I can remember when SPSS had no GUI. It seemed much more responsive back then, running on a VAX.

If we can achieve bigger and better things by teaching a new generation of users how to use the command line again, maybe it's worth considering?

No, absolutely not. Totally unrealistic. Forget I mentioned it.

My favorite thing about R is that is has no GUI. To me it makes it more powerful.

Re: Learn R two minutes at a time

#30

Post by singingfish »

h84ru3a wrote: post #25
aggronn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're doing in-depth statistical analysis, there's not really any reason to know anything about R. It isn't a useful general purpose language. That is to say, while your suggestion is certainly valid and appreciable, the reason why there are rarely primers for content about R (specifically) is that the intended audience is primarily academic, where the audience is already familiar with the technology. if you…

But couldn't R have applications in business (industry)? A businessperson once asked me about R after he read a non-technical article about it in a major newspaper. This person has never been in academia. Why was he curious? What could he possibly see in R? I see R as a "disruptor" to the market that SPSS has had under lock and key for as long as I can remember. Perhaps statistics has utility outside of academics? Ma…

Well between SAS and SPSS they have had the market under lock and key. Yes R is widely used in industry these days. Yes, unless you've got serious statistical work to do it is a fairly horrible language to work with.
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