I’m continuing to gather and analyze data to update The Popularity of Data Analysis Software. In this installment I cover the latest employment figures. Employment is important to us all, so what software skills are employers seeking? A thorough answer … Continue reading → [Read more...]

I recently updated my plots of the data analysis tools used in academia in my ongoing article, The Popularity of Data Analysis Software. I repeat those here and update my previous forecast of data analysis software usage. Learning to use … Continue reading → [Read more...]

Has learning R been driving you a bit crazy? If so, it may be that you’re “lost in translation.” On June 17 and 19, I’ll be teaching a webinar, R for SAS, SPSS and Stata Users. With each R concept, … Continue reading → [Read more...]

R is popular free and open-source software for graphics and data analytics. The Knoxville R Users Group is being formed to help people learn R and improve their skills with it. Three departments of The University of Tennessee are working together … Continue reading → [Read more...]

April 1, 2013 – Although the capabilities of the R system for data analytics have been expanding with impressive speed, it has heretofore been missing important fundamental methods. A new function works with the popular plyr package to provide these missing … Continue reading → [Read more...]

by Robert A. Muenchen I’m slowly gathering all the data needed to update my ongoing article, The Popularity of Data Analysis Software. The section below is the latest installment. Growth in Capability The capability of all the software in this … Continue reading → [Read more...]

by Robert A. Muenchen How can we measure the popularity or market share of analytic software? One way is to see what people are discussing. I’m in the process of updating my annual article, The Popularity of Data Analysis Software. Below … Continue reading → [Read more...]

There are several ways to perform data transformations in R. Each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take one variable, square it and add 100. How many ways might an R beginner screw up such a simple … Continue reading → [Read more...]

My workshop R for SAS, SPSS and Stata Users has been popular over the years, but it’s time for an overhaul. A common request has been to simplify it, so I have moved data management to a separate 4-hour workshop, … Continue reading → [Read more...]

R has several ways to specify which variables to use in an analysis. Some of the most frustrating errors can result from not understanding the order in which R searches for variables. This post demonstrates that order, hopefully smoothing your … Continue reading → [Read more...]

The TIOBE Community Programming Index ranks the popularity of programming languages, but from a programming language perspective rather than as analytical software (http://www.tiobe.com). It extracts measurements from blogs, entries in Wikipedia, books on Amazon, search engine results, etc. and combines them into a single index. … Continue reading → [Read more...]

The open source R software for analytics has a reputation for being hard to learn. It certainly can be, especially for people who are already familiar with similar packages such as SAS, SPSS or Stata. Training and documentation that leverages … Continue reading → [Read more...]

The 2012 results of the annual KDnuggets poll are in. It shows R in first place with 30.7% of users reporting having used it for a real project. Excel is almost as popular. It seems out of place among so … Continue reading → [Read more...]