Software tools for STAT 790, statistical learning

(see also setup info)

R

R is a domain-specific language for statistics and data science

  • download links etc. are available at CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) (if you already have R installed, make sure you have upgraded to the latest version)

  • in the course of the term you will probably need compilation tools for building R code that includes compiled (C/Fortran) code

    • MacOS tools
    • Windows tools
    • if you use Linux you are likely to have most of these tools already, but see here (and go to the subdirectory appropriate for your distribution); you may also want to use r2u to simplify and speed up package installation

Julia

Julia is a domain-specific language for high-performance computing and data analysis. Download/install the stable release from here.

Quarto

Quarto is a scientific publishing/reporting system for integrating code and output in a document or notebook. Download/install link

VS Code

Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is an integrated development environment (IDE). While it primarily targets software development rather than data analysis, it handles multiple languages better than RStudio (see below). Download and install

TeX

TeX is an ancient (first released in the 1970s) typesetting/document creation system that is still standard in mathematics and many technical fields. If you already have (La)TeX installed on your system, you probably don’t need to reinstall it.

Python (optional)

You’ll need to install Python if you want to use radian, which is an improved R console for VS Code. Download/install

RStudio

RStudio is a more traditional IDE that supports R very well, and other languages OK. Download/install (free desktop version).