[R] Learning R: which book to choose?

[Chris Lawrence]

On Oct 12, Jan Krupa wrote:
> I am new to R. I am going to by one of the following book:
> 
> 1.
> William N. Venables and Brian D. Ripley. Modern Applied Statistics 
> with S-Plus.
> Third Edition. Springer, 1999. ISBN 0-387-98825-4.
> 
> 2.
>  The  Fourth Edition of the book from point 1.
> 
> 3.
> `S Programming'
>  by W. N. Venables and B. D. Ripley
>  Springer. ISBN 0-387-98966-8, 2000.
> 
> 
> I can only by one of the above books.

It really depends on your field and level of expertise.  If you are a
statistician (i.e. you have a degree in statistics or biostatistics),
or from a very strong mathematical backgroud, MASS is probably the
appropriate book, although you may want something more introductory.
(I haven't seen MASS4 yet.)

OTOH, if you're a social scientist, I'd *strongly* recommend John
Fox's "Companion to Applied Regression with R and S-Plus."

(It also depends somewhat on what you actually want to do with R, as
others have suggested...)


Chris
-- 
Chris Lawrence <cnlawren at phy.olemiss.edu> - http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/

Computer Systems Manager, Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Mississippi
Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science
125B Lewis Hall - 662-915-5765
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