This recent article from Alyssa Frazee’s blog provides a tutorial on how to help non-programmers get started with R. Given that R is a programming language popular outside of the development world – its focus on statistics and data visualization makes it popular among data scientists and sociologists, for example – the tutorial is a useful starting point and provides an outline of the need-to-know aspects of R. A lot of ground is covered in a series of quick and concise steps. For instance:
- How to download R and RStudio
- Working with graphics
- Data types
- Exploratory data analysis
And more. An important detail here, though, is the intended audience of the tutorial: It is not for non-programmers attempting to learn R, but really for programmers attempting to teach R to non-programmers, especially in a concise, crash-course fashion. I think there would definitely be some value here for non-programmers or even programmers who are new to R (though experienced programmers interested in R might be better served elsewhere), because it provides an outline of things you need to research and learn, but I believe the intention is to be more of an informal teaching aid.