R Graphics Cookbook by Winston Chang
Summary: Must have for every R begginer
And now, the moment we all have been waiting for. R graphics cookbook is already on shelves – and I have missed it’s release! This is why I am putting my hands on it right now. The book is a very well composed and easy to browse plotting compendium for R users. Some sort of must have. In my opinion it goes well together with R Cookbook by Paul Teetor or with R in a Nutshell by Joseph Adler.
Just to the meritum. What I have found really helpful is that examples are based on data delivered via the package installed within R. So, you don’t have to download, install or browse anything outside R. All you have to do is type in:
install.packages("ggplot2")
install.packages("gcookbook")
and you are ready to go.
I know that Winston has his own page (Cookbook for R) where lots of plotting examples are available for browsing. However, here, in the book you get the same content with new layout, additional remarks and new content, everything packed in a form of typical cookbook. It is not that you pay for the copy-paste from the web page. You are getting better organised and better explained content. Another thing is that book contains topics you won’t be able to find at the web page (e.g. multiline legends, colouring negative and positive bars differently, extended scatter plots related content, and much much more). So, as I said, this is not a copy-paste like book. Of course, you can still live with the Cookbook for R materials online and you will probably be happy. But not as much as with this book in your hands.
In my opinion, suggested audience for this book are:
– people who start their adventure with R
– people who are looking for new inspirations with plots
– people who are not sure how data could be visualised and are bored with standard plots
– people who are willing to get familiar with ggplot2
If you are advanced R user and it happened so that you have gone into plotting routine and you are playing with the same plots all the time it might be refreshing to see what others have to offer.
Product page: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023135.do
Amazon (in Books): R Graphics Cookbook
Amazon (Kindle): R Graphics Cookbook
You might be also interested in these: 25 Recipes for Getting Started with R by Paul Teetor, R Cookbook by Paul Teetor, R in a Nutshell by Joseph Adler