R – how to get started?

R is a very popular and rapidly growing tool for data analysis and visualization. It has a particularly wide audience in advanced GIS analysis or remote sensing. Today we will show you how to start your adventure with this language. I won’t go into the theory of who created it and so on, but those interested in a broader exploration of the origins of the language can refer to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)

What do we need to use R on Windows? First we need to download and install it from: https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/

This version is supported by both 32 and 64 bit operating systems. After installing R-base, we can use it directly by finding the R.exe file in the installation folder. When you run it, an interactive console will appear, just like in Python:

Define the variable

c=1

and then display it with the variable name

c

The console shows us the value of the variable c:

Using the interactive console is recommended for advanced users with more knowledge of the R language. But why bother when there are tools that make working with this language easier, such as RStudio. RStudio includes a code editor, a window to visualize the results, and many useful tools that help with daily work, but I’ll write about that in another post. RStudio can be downloaded from the website:

https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/

After installing and launching RStudio, the application opens with many sub-windows and tools, which I will write about in a next entry.