Helping the rest of us learn #rstats @rfortherest
he/him
Sep 28, 2020 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
When I started learning R, I thought it was just for stats.
I've since come to see it as a workflow tool (bit.ly/349GOHh).
Here's a thread about how I recently used R that is a great example of its power to improve your workflow.
#rstats
I've been supporting Prosper Portland, the business development agency for the city of Portland. For the last two weeks, they were taking applications from businesses affected by COVID.
What's your favorite example of a visually appealing report?
Looking in particular for examples that communicate with data to non-technical audiences.
May 1, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Teaching students to use software they won't have access to after graduation is immoral.
I'm not a hot takes kind of guy. This is my one medium spicy take.
Apr 20, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
ggplot is, to me, the perfect level of abstraction: complex enough that it forces you to think about what you're doing, but simple enough to pick up (semi) quickly. #rstats
With Excel, I always felt like I was just hacking things together without thinking about the underlying issues.
Moving to #rstats forced me to think more deeply about data viz — and become better in the process.
I don't use private spaces, which I feared might lead to issues with bandwidth.
This works fine for me because I'm typically doing one- or two-day workshops and I don't need people to "turn in" materials, which can only be done with private spaces.
Feb 25, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Here are the actual how-to resources I share with people interested in Git/GitHub. 👇
I've been thinking about a lot recently about how to explain the benefits of a Git/GitHub workflow to clients I train on #rstats.
Here's a short thread with some of my thoughts. Would love to hear what benefits you see that I've missed!
Learning Git/GitHub is HARD so there has to be some real gain for people to invest the time to learn it.
For organizations I work with, the initial pain point that leads them to consider it is that they can't collaborate asynchronously.
Feb 6, 2020 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Things I learned from this: I'm definitely not the only one and y'all have a lot of feelings about automation.
Thanks for all the responses! Here is a short thread of the main themes I saw.
1) Automation often seems more efficient, but can easily spin out of control, particularly when you have to maintain code that automates things later on.
Jan 9, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Ok, there seems to be genuine interest in this (thanks!). I'm going to practice by doing some live #rstats coding today at 10:00am Pacific time. It will show up right here on Twitter.
I'll be working on making a video about how to recode survey data with numeric responses that stand for text responses (e.g. 1 = good, 2 = very good).
Dec 31, 2019 • 67 tweets • 49 min read
As 2019 comes to a close, I want to thank all of the lovely people in the #rstats world who have made my year a professional success. For each person in this thread, I'm going to tweet one thing they've done that I particularly appreciate.
I struggled with learning R for a long time — until I made the switch to the tidyverse. As the driving force behind the tidyverse, I'm incredibly grateful for the all of the work that @hadleywickham has done.
One of the best parts of my work teaching #rstats is getting to work with incredible teams. I wanted to highlight a few of the organizations I've had the pleasure of working with this year.
Oakland-based @Public_Profit is a leader in the world of program evaluation that helps mission-driven organizations measure and manage their work. As they moved to R, they created some super smart structures, including hosting regular R parties.
I struggle to find resources like this to share with folks I train on R. There are a ton of great tutorials for getting started and for super advanced things, far fewer for folks who have gotten started, but don't know how best to proceed with #rstats.
The resources mentioned in the thread above are great, but still quite advanced (e.g. rstats.wtf). I'm considering putting together a "book" (i.e. bookdown) that will answer the types of questions I get all the time.
Oct 3, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Lesson I'm learning about tidying data: after importing data, I often need to create multiple data frames because the CSV/Excel file I import contains multiple types of observational units. #rstats
For example, I was working with school enrollment data. I realized that the spreadsheet provided by the Oregon Department of Education covers two types of data (school enrollment by race/ethnicity and school enrollment by grade).
Sep 19, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Really interesting question. Wonder what folks would tell Keith?
The first thing that comes to mind for me is the ability to work simultaneously on a project with a collaborator. With Dropbox, only one person at a time can work on a project or you get all sorts of problems. With git, you can each work and then merge your work together.
Sep 9, 2019 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Crowdsourcing for a future blog post. Here are my favorite packages for making tables in #rstats. What am I missing?
The newish {gt} package by @riannone and friends seems like a great overall package. gt.rstudio.com
Jul 29, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Looking to develop a list of #rstats podcasts that are useful for relative newbies (i.e. have a general enough focus to be comprehensible to any R user no matter their field). Here are the ones I know of. Please tell me what I'm missing.
@NSSDeviations from @rdpeng and @hspter
Jul 16, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I've been thinking recently about how #rstats being open source facilitates the development of functionality whose explicit goals include social justice.
I can't imagine proprietary software with centralized development (like SPSS, SAS, Stata, etc) creating functionality like, say, the {gendercodeR} package (bit.ly/32t7KzU) by @emilyandthelime, which enables the coding of free text gender responses.
Apr 3, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I'm curious as to how the R community came to be so supportive and welcoming (as opposed to so much of the tech world). Anyone have ideas? #rstats
The other tech world I sort of follow is WordPress, which is going through all sorts of turmoil right now for being less than welcoming. See this for example: caroleolinger.com/a-tough-decisi…
Mar 1, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Help me out #rstats hive mind. I've been asked to explain the benefits of RMarkdown. I'm developing a list on a continuum from simple (i.e. do what you currently do, just better) to complex (i.e. completely transform how you work). Here 'tis:
1) Use one tool from start to finish. 2) Focus on content, not on formatting. 3) Ensure consistent branding (i.e. using Word reference docs when knitting). 4) Reproducibility. 5) Version control (using git). 6) More efficient collaboration (using GitHub).
Dec 4, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Just published on an article about how I "only" use R for descriptive stats -- and that's ok. rforeval.com/descriptive-st…#rstats
Thanks to @kierisi for the inspiration to share my own insecurities about my not being an "expert."
