Learning to program in "R".

In the field of data analysis there are two competing programming languages. These are Python and R.

People who want to get started in this professional field wonder which one to learn. The easy answer would be both. Once you know one, the truth is that it is relatively easy to learn the other. A more elaborate answer forces us to look at the student’s professional profile and career plan. At Ubiqum we distinguish two different professional profiles in the field of data analysis:

  • People with a good technical background (STEM). This profile may choose to go deeper into the more technical aspects of data analysis and we offer a course that includes both programming languages. Data Analysis and machine Learning course. Or even, if you have a very solid technical background and want to reach a higher level in Data Science, you can opt for the Data Science and Deep Learning Course.
  • People with a good business background. This second profile is composed of those people who, without having a solid technical background, have years of experience in some functional area of the company (logistics, finance, HR, marketing, sales, etc.). For this profile, we consider that learning Python is enough and we offer a complete course, less technical and more focused on business. Business analytics and Power BI course.

 

For those who want to know more about Python, we invite you to consult Learn Python. Keep reading if you want to know more about “R”.

What is R?

The R language is an open source statistical analysis and programming environment, specially designed for data manipulation, visualization and modeling. Noted for its wide range of packages and its emphasis on statistics and academic research.

Key aspects of the R language:

  1. Statistics and Data Analysis: offers a wide range of functions and tools for performing statistical analysis, from basic operations to advanced techniques, making it a powerful language for research and statistical modeling.
  2. Packages and Libraries: It has a large number of specialized packages and libraries, such as. dplyr, ggplot2, tidyr, caretamong others, which provide additional functionalities to manipulate data, visualize results, perform predictive analysis and more.
  3. Data Visualization: Provides robust capabilities for creating high-quality graphs and visualizations, making it easy to visually represent data and interpret it.
  4. Active Community and Tidy Verse Ecosystem: It has an active community of users and developers who contribute to the development and maintenance of packages, as well as the Tidyverse ecosystem, which promotes consistency and efficiency in the data manipulation and analysis workflow.
  5. Ease of Use and Learning: It stands out for its readable and accessible syntax, making it suitable for beginners and experts alike, allowing for progressive learning and rapid adoption.
  6. Integration with Other Languages and Platforms: Allows integration with other programming languages such as Python, SQL and C++, as well as tools such as Jupyter Notebooks and integrated development environments (IDE) such as RStudio.

 

R has become an essential tool in the field of data analysis, scientific research and statistics because of its potential to perform complex statistical analysis and its flexibility to manipulate and visualize data effectively.

R, like Python, is presented in several libraries where the user finds reusable code fragments that can be used directly and chained together, making work much more productive and efficient.

R libraries we use in Ubiqum

DPLYR

dplyr is a software package in the R programming language, used to efficiently manipulate and transform data. It was developed by Hadley Wickham and is part of the R language package ecosystem, especially popular in the field of data analysis and data science.

Key features and aspects of dplyr:

  1. Efficient Data Manipulation: Provides a set of optimized functions to perform common operations on data, such as filtering, column selection, grouping, joining data sets, among others.
  2. Clear and Consistent Syntax: Provides an intuitive and consistent syntax, which makes code easier to write and understand, allowing users to focus on the logic of operations rather than worrying about implementation details.
  3. Main Functions of dplyr:
    • filter(): Allows filtering rows of data based on specific conditions.
    • select(): Used to select specific columns from a data set.
    • mutate(): Adds new columns or transforms existing columns based on user-defined rules.
    • summarize(): Produces summaries or aggregations of data, such as calculating sums, averages or counting items.
    • arrange(): Sorts rows of data based on one or more columns.
  4. Integration with tidyverse: dplyr is part of the tidyverse suite of packages, which includes complementary tools for R data manipulation, visualization and analysis.
  5. Performance Optimization: It is designed to work efficiently with large data sets, minimizing memory usage and maximizing execution speed.
  6. Ease of Learning: Its consistent approach and detailed documentation make it suitable for both beginners and advanced users looking to perform data manipulation operations effectively in R.

 

In summary, dplyr provides a powerful and efficient tool for performing data manipulation tasks in R, allowing users to work more effectively in data analysis and data processing, especially in data analysis and data science environments.

GGPLOT2

ggplot2 is a data visualization package in the R programming language, created by Hadley Wickham. It is based on the “Grammar of Graphics” philosophy, which allows the creation of complex and customized graphs from data in an intuitive and flexible way.

Key aspects of ggplot2:

  1. Layer Abstraction:Allows building layered charts, where each component of the chart is added independently, including data, aesthetic elements, scales and geometries, providing a high level of control and customization.
  2. Declarative Syntax:It uses a declarative syntax, which means that users describe what the plot should look like instead of specifying steps to draw it. This is achieved through the ggplot() function and the addition of layers using functions such as geom_ to represent different types of graphs (points, lines, bars, among others).
  3. Scalability and Flexibility:It is highly flexible and can be adapted to create a wide variety of visualizations, from simple graphics to more complex and customized graphics.
  4. Detailed Customization:Allows detailed customization of all chart components, including colors, sizes, labels, visual themes, among others, to meet specific visualization needs.
  5. Integration with the Tidyverse Ecosystem:ggplot2 integrates seamlessly with other packages in the tidyverse ecosystem, allowing for efficient and seamless manipulation of data prior to visualization.
  6. Graphics Quality:Provides high-quality, aesthetically appealing graphics by default, making it easy to create professional and polished visualizations.

 

In summary, ggplot2 is a powerful and versatile tool for creating complex and customized data visualizations in R, offering users an effective way to explore and communicate information through informative and aesthetically pleasing graphics.

CARET

caret is a library in R that provides a unified interface for training and evaluating machine learning models. Its name, “Classification And REgression Training”, highlights its initial focus on classification and regression, although it has evolved to include a wide range of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques and algorithms.

Main features and functionalities of caret:

  1. Unified interface: caret provides a consistent and simplified interface for fitting machine learning models, regardless of the algorithm used, making it easy to compare and fit multiple models.
  2. Support for Diverse Algorithms: Includes a wide range of machine learning algorithms, such as decision trees, linear regression, logistic regression, support vector machines (SVM), neural networks, among others.
  3. Integrated Data Preprocessing: Provides tools to perform data preprocessing, such as missing value imputation, standardization, normalization and coding of categorical variables, which simplifies the data analysis workflow.
  4. Model Selection and Hyperparameter Optimization: Facilitates model selection and hyperparameter optimization using techniques such as grid search and cross-validation, which helps to improve model performance.
  5. Model Evaluation: Provides standard evaluation metrics and tools to compare the performance of different models, such as accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, AUC-ROC, among others.
  6. Flexibility and Extensibility: caret allows the inclusion of new algorithms, metrics and custom techniques, as well as integration with other R libraries and functions.
  7. Documentation and Community: It has complete documentation, tutorials and an active community of users and developers who contribute with resources and knowledge.

 

Caret has become a fundamental tool for data scientists and analysts working with R, as it streamlines the modeling and model evaluation process, enabling a more efficient and systematic approach to building machine learning models. Its ability to unify multiple algorithms and simplify model evaluation and comparison is highly valued in the R data analytics and machine learning community.

"R" in Ubiqum

At Ubiqum we offer two programs focused on student profiles with technical backgrounds. In each of them the student obtains a solid programming base in R (and Python) and in the use of the libraries mentioned above.

Data Analysis and Machine Learning Course

Data Science and Deep Learning Course (advanced)

Request more information about our courses

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