Introduction to R

R is the language built by statisticians, for statistics — the go-to for data analysis and visualisation.

¶What is R?

R is a dynamic language specialised for statistical computing, with data frames and vectorised math built in.

Its package ecosystem (the tidyverse, ggplot2) makes wrangling and plotting data remarkably concise.

¶Your first example

Here is R saying hello. Read it top to bottom — every line earns its place.

x <- c(2, 4, 6, 8)
cat("Mean:", mean(x), "\n")

Mean: 5

¶Why learn R?

• Purpose-built for statistics and data exploration.
• World-class plotting with ggplot2.
• The lingua franca of academic and research data work.

¶Where it is used

• Statistical analysis
• Data visualisation
• Research & academia
• Bioinformatics

¶How this track works

Every topic here has four views, switchable with the tabs at the top of each page:

• Learn — the clear, practical walkthrough you are reading now.
• Deep — every detail: edge cases, the full API, and what is really happening.
• Reference — a scannable, no-fluff lookup for when you already know the shape.
• Cheatsheet — the one-page summary, printable, for quick recall.