Chapter 2 Preparing for the course

Before we start the course, we have to download and prepare a computer program which allows us to use R for programming.

Probably the best option for this at the moment is RStudio. This program gives us a user interface which makes it easier to overlook our data, packages and output. The best part is that RStudio is completely free and can be downloaded anytime.

In this Chapter, we’ll focus on how you can install RStudio on your computer. We’ll also provide some general information on R, and how you can get help if you get error messages.

If you already have RStudio installed on your computer, and if you’re an experienced R user already, all of this might be nothing new for you. You may skip this chapter then.

Especially if you have never used R before, we would like to consider this Chapter essential, as it gives you some input on how R works, and how we can use it for our data analyses.

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