Google Developers Introduction to R Series

R is an open source software programming language that is widely used among data miners for data analysis. The popularity of R has grown exponentially in the last couple of years and, if you are new to the R language, Google Developers has created a series that will help you get started with R. Each video is relatively short, ranging from 2 to 4 minutes. The entire series is split up into 4 sections. Videos have feature captions that can be translated into any language to make them easy to follow. These videos are a gateway to both the R language and the fundamentals of programming.

The programming concepts that appear in this series are listed below:

Variables are storage locations that contain information. This concept is introduced in video 1.2.
Control structures (also called control flow) are blocks of code that decide how a program will respond when given certain conditions and parameters. An example of a common control structure is “if-else” statements. They are introduced in video 2.3.
Data structure is a way of organizing data so that the program can use the data in an efficient way. An example of a data structure is a Variable. For larger sets of information R uses particular types of data structures which are unique only to the R language. There are vectors (1.3), Matrices (1.6), and data frames (2.1) all of these types of data structures are objects that can be stored and manipulated.
Syntax is the set of rules and arrangements that can be correctly interpreted in that language. This concept is covered through the entire series.

The following is a synopsis of the beginner introduction to R videos from Google:

Section 1 Basics:

The initial install of R on your computer includes a tour around the R environment and practice entering commands. This section also has an overview of working with vectors; they are the heart of R. It also teaches you about other object structures of R such as data frames and matrices.

Section 2 and 3 Control and Data Structures:

This portion of the series deals with the process of creating data structures from your own data. It also teaches how to manipulate the data structures you have created by using control structures.

Section 4 Functions:

The final section of the R series uses the skills that you learned in sections 1-3 in order to create your own custom R functions.

Overall this series is a good way to get started with R if you are an absolute beginner.

Here the link to the Google’s Introduction to R series so you can get started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffR3fWv4xw&list=PLyYlLs02rgBYRWBzYpoHz7m2SE8mEZ68w

More Resources:

20 free tutorials for R

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2012/04/20-free-r-tutorials-and-one-reference-card.html

Free interactive tutorial on R

https://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-r

R syntax cheat sheet

http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/doc/contrib/refcard.pdf