What you will learn in this lesson
- How to install R
- How to install RStudio
To begin your R journey, you need to install R on your computer. You need to install two components: R and RStudio.
Why do you need to install two different apps? In theory, you could just install R. But RStudio makes working with R easier, more enjoyable and less error-prone. In other words, using RStudio will increase your productivity.
RStudio is an IDE — Integrated Development Environment. RStudio is an interface, an extra layer, on top of R specifically designed and optimized for R.
To summarize:
- you need to install R so that your computer can run R code
- you can install RStudio to work more productively with R
Let’s install R and RStudio.
Here comes the first advantage of R compared to Stata, SAS and SPSS—among others: R and RStudio are free to download and to use. You do not need to pay for a license. You do not need to pay for an upgrade. You do not need to crack the license—cracking a license always comes with security risks for your computer. You just install R and RStudio.
Let’s start by downloading the installers.
Start by running the R installer. Then, run the RStudio installer.
If you are on a Mac and use Homebrew, you can install RStudio with brew install --cask rstudio. I do not recommend installing R itself with Homebrew. I tried, and it created a lot of problems.
You now have R and RStudio installed on your computer. Congratulations! Let’s finish the set of free lessons by writing your first R code.