Introducing R

R is the most widely used language for statistics, data mining, and machine learning. Besides the language, R is also the environment and the engine that executes the R code. You need to learn how to develop R programs, just as you need to learn any other programming language you intend to use.

Before going deeper into the R language, let's explain what the terms statistics, data mining, and machine learning mean. Statistics is the study and analysis of data collections, and interpretation and presentation of the results of the analysis. Typically, you don't have all population data, or census data, collected. You have to use samples—often survey samples. Data mining is again a set of powerful analysis techniques used on your data in order to discover patterns and rules that might improve your business. Machine learning is programming to use data to solve a given problem automatically. You can immediately see that all three definitions overlap. There is not...