Introduction to R

One tool that statisticians—and now data scientists as well—often use for data cleaning, analysis, and reporting is the R programming language. 

In this chapter, we'll begin by looking at the basics of using R as a programming language and as a statistical analysis tool, and we'll also install a few useful R packages that we will continue to use throughout the book. 

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Install R packages for use throughout the book
• Use R as a calculator for basic arithmetic
• Utilize different data structures
• Control program flow by writing if-else, for, and while loops
• Import and export data to and from CSV, Excel, and SQL