1.5 Software

The R code for the book can be found in the gitbook version on the web. You will need to have some knowledge and experience of working with R (R Core Team (2023)) and the group of R packages known as the tidyverse (Wickham (2019)). Some users prefer base R for drawing their graphics and may use packages such as lattice and vcd.

There are too many books and resources on R to do justice to them here. R is a language, not a collection of software commands, and using R is like using any language: there are many alternative ways of carrying out the same tasks, some may be better than others. There is no claim that the R code accompanying the book is to be recommended, but it may be helpful.

Software alternatives for drawing graphics include using languages like Python, statistical software such as SPSS, SAS or Stata, business graphics software such as Tableau or Microsoft Power BI, popular workhorse software like Excel, sophisticated graphics software like Adobe Illustrator: the list just goes on and on.