R
R (using RStudio)
R is an open source software that has been been adopted by the statistical community as its standard software package. It is a command driven software, meaning that you will have to give the software written commands to indicate what you do. On first sight this is not as convenient as a menu driven software, but it has the huge advantage that you can collect a large set of commands in a file (script file) and then have R execute all these commands in one go. This then serves as a great documentation of the work you have done and most importantly it makes it easy to change a small aspect of your work and rerun the entire project on the press of a button rather than having to laboriously retrace all your steps through menus.
The fixed cost of learning this software is higher than learning a menu driven statistical software package. But if you engage with this process the rewards will be great.
Last not least, R has a killer advantage. It is free!!!
Installing the Software
To work with R you will have to install the basic software package R, but we also advise you to install RStudio, which is an add-on to R (formally called an Integrated Development Environment - IDE) which makes working with R somewhat easier.
So here are the steps you should take
- Download and install the R software, which is available from the |CRAN website
