Chapter 1 About us

      

Caitlin, Dionne, and Lauren are from R Ladies Melbourne, and we are here because we want to teach you how to program in R!

R-Ladies is a world-wide organisation whose mission is to promote gender diversity in the R community.

See the R-Ladies global website or R-Ladies Melbourne for more information!

1.1 What is coding and what is R?

Coding is writing instructions that a machine or computer can understand to perform a task.

R is a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is used in statistics, data science and many other disciplines. It is also a very powerful tool for visualising data.

R python java cpp

1.2 Why learn R?

  • R is free and open source
  • Learning R is fun and easy
  • Lots of libraries
  • Want the coolest job?

Who uses R? Academics and Industry, including:

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Twitter
  • McKinsey & Company
  • Microsoft
  • Ford
  • BCG
  • Uber