[R] Tips for a longtime S-Plus user moving to R

Kevin E. Thorpe
2005-04-20T13:23:56Z

Greetings.

I have been using S-Plus for many years now (>13) and have recently
started to use R as well.  I have been interested in R for sometime, but
until recently, have not been in a position to devote much time to it,
but I digress.

Besides some of the more technical differences between R ans S-Plus
described in the FAQ, there are other simple differences I have
encountered.  For example, S-Plus has a function stdev() for calculating
standard deviations while in R the corresponding function is sd(), which
was easily found by looking at the help.  Another example, crosstabs()
in S-Plus versus xtabs() in R.

I am also learning, thanks to this list, that R has many useful
functions that S-Plus does not.  I recently learned of the subset()
function which seems to replace constructions like df[df$x==something,].

I am very interested in learning about other "high level" differences
between R and S-Plus like the examples above.  I have downloaded the
excellent reference card created by Tom Short.  I have been scanning the
lists of functions in the help system for the "standard" (base, stats,
etc.) packages.  Both of these activities have been profitable.

Please share your experiences, tips, resources you have come across.  I
will be pleased to summarise the responses to the list.

Kind Regards,

Kevin

--
Kevin E. Thorpe
Biostatistician/Trialist, Knowledge Translation Program
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
email: kevin.thorpe at utoronto.ca  Tel: 416.946.8081  Fax: 416.971.2462