R in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference

I bought the 1st edition and this one is just as good. Generally he uses straightforward examples and provides enough detail to "make it work." So, for example, with just a few pages of reading I can understand how to technically get decision trees to work in R. For the general reader I think Adler spends way too much time on object programming concepts and the behind the scenes structure of R. It would be nice to have time for theoretical detours like he uses but for those of us who are busy and in the commercial world, such material should be relegated to an appendix. I really don't care how R does it, in the same sense that I do not car how my car optimizes its gas/air ratio -- I just want it to go.That being said, Adler's range of knowledge is astounding and I certainly trust what he says. With just a slight tweak to meet the needs of his less academic readers, the book would be perfect.

released almost 10 years ago in 2012. still very useful. hopefully a third edition comes out .

This book is the second that I purchased this past year to get up to speed on the R language and environment, along with "R in Action" and "R Graphics Cookbook" (see my reviews), but unlike these other two, I fully expected this book to serve as a reference rather than a tutorial, based on my experience with "UNIX in a Nutshell" many years ago. However, through my experience I was quickly made aware of the breadth of the R language, which includes over 2500 packages that have become available to the community, and I have instead typically used this book as a starting point for additional research on websites which cater to the R community, including CRAN ("Comprehensive R Archive Network").Even given its near 700-page size, it is difficult for any book to cover R extensively, so I credit this book to continue to provide pointers in the right direction as I gain experience using the language. While "R in Action" in its introductory chapters gets one up and running with R more gracefully, chapter 1 ("Getting and Installing R") and chapter 2 ("The R User Interface") in this book also provide a glimpse into the many options available with regard to environments. The closest that one will get with a tutorial in this book is the 18-page chapter 3 ("A Short R Tutorial"), but this chapter should really only be considered a way to wet one's appetite with regard to basic operations, functions, variables, data structures, objects and classes, models and formulas, and charts and graphics, as chapters 5 through 10 go over these topics more extensively.Chapter 11 ("Saving, Loading, and Editing Data") along with Chapter 12 ("Preparing Data") provide useful information on working with data, because, like it or not, as with any language most data work revolves around first getting it into the correct format, but although these chapters present more available options in this area than "R in Action", these chapters also again read more like an encyclopedia and do not provide any guidance, because as is the case with most of this text, readers are likely best served when they have a decent idea of what they are looking to accomplish.Most of my use of this book has involved Part 4 ("Data Visualization"), Part 5 ("Statistics with R"), and Part 6 ("Additional Topics"). After experimenting with the packages included with R by default, it is Chapter 15 ("ggplot2") which led me to purchase "R Graphics Cookbook", a well recommended book to learn the ggplot2 package, but it is the other chapters within this part of the book that made me realize that although the ggplot2 package provides standardization that is often lacking with R, no single package is likely to ever serve the needs of a developer, at least over time. Recommended text for those in the earlier stages of using the R language and environment and still finding their way, but not for the neophyte, as this book is not a tutorial, nor is it the encyclopedia one would expect from the "In a Nutshell" series.

This is a solid reference manual that warrants a place on your desk if you regularly use R for business analytics. My chief complaint is that the index is very slim. If you've read through the book and remember seeing a particular topic but don't remember where it was exactly, the index can be frustrating because it isn't very thorough.As far as content, it covers most of the basics although its ggplot section is too basic (R Graphics Cookbook is a good alternative if you are looking for specific plotting help).I'd recommend getting both the hard copy and the ebook (only around $5 dollars through Oreilly's site if you've purchased the hard-copy).

Before buying, look at the book description at the publisher's website (oreilly.com) and click on the "errata" link. Check to see how long that list is. If you can live with cross-referencing this list with the book, then buy it. Otherwise, there are probably better books out there.As it is, I am somewhat proficient in R and bought this book as a crash course for a better understanding of the basics, especially the graphics and statistics. After barrelling through roughly half of the book, I found many references to functions or parameters which were never explained or were explained later in the book (without saying so at the first reference). For someone who is hoping for a quick read through most of what R has to offer, this is like hitting a brick wall.The book helps the reader understand a lot of what R is capable of, but it seems to be done in a more slip-shod manner than I was hoping for. I get the feeling the author was rushed in getting this to print. Or, they didn't pay the editor enough.As an aside, the formatting for the kindle edition has been working pretty well. I've actually been reading it on the cloud reader without problems (be sure to download a local copy for offline reading).

My husband has been waiting for months for this book and loves it. He needs it to do further work on a paper.He is a mathematician so any book that keeps him amused wins five stars with me. I am an artist with no mathematical Knowledge except i did like the cover.

It's pretty good. My first experience with a nutshell book, but I can't help thinking a bit more than reciting the man pages would be helpful. For example if you find the man page confusing, this won't help.

This book is very helpful with learning R and the concepts of data science.

A very good book for an (in depth) introduction to R and to keep as a reference.I would consider this book a must have for anyone intending to use R.However, if you are looking for an introduction only, you might want to start with "Learning R" (same publisher) as the latter also provides exercises.

The book was new never used and very very useful to start learning with R and to keep it as a reference for R codes

I bought it 5 years ago, this was my first introduction to R programming. Today, I have come far and I can write packages in R. Overall, I like this book but it will be great if they can introduce readers to the packages like data.table and tidyverse framework in more detail.

Excelente libro y contenidos, lo que lo haría perfecto sería que tuviera color tanto por los scripts como por los gráficos

C'est une bible que les débutants en R pourront emmener avec eux sans problème. Tous les problèmes de base sont abordés de la gestion des données aux premières exploitations graphiques.Évidemment si vous cherchez des infos sur des modèles statistiques précis peu de choses dans ce livre (les quelques chapitres économétrie sont très faibles).Mais cette bible est souvent avec moi comme pense-bête.