Appendix C — How to install the software you need for this course

Windows, Mac, and Linux users can go to https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/ and download and then run whatever installer is appropriate for their computer. This software is free.

RStudio is a wrapper around R that most beginners find more pleasant to use. While I advise all users who are getting started with R to use RStudio, there may come a point where you tire of its user interface, or would rather use something that integrates more cleanly with whatever text editor or development environment you prefer. If so, you can download R without the RStudio from the official R website (https://cran.r-project.org/).

The following applies only to people who already have a text editor preference; this will seem like nonsense otherwise and so please ignore. Emacs users (like me) should take a look at ESS, and vim and SublimeText users will find excellent development environments for them as well. Atom users are fine if they’re on Mac and (I think) Windows, but otherwise you’re out of luck.