Advanced R, Second Edition

This resource delves into the fundamental workings of R, catering to both seasoned R programmers and those familiar with other languages seeking to grasp R's unique features. It covers foundational concepts, three core programming paradigms—functional, object-oriented, and metaprogramming—and offers advanced techniques for debugging and optimizing code. Readers will learn about the distinction between objects and their names, vector data structures and subsetting, the intricacies of functions and environments, and the condition system that governs messages, warnings, and errors. The book emphasizes the functional programming paradigm, which can often replace traditional loops, and explores the key object-oriented systems: S3, S4, and R6. It introduces the tidy eval toolkit for metaprogramming, enabling code manipulation and evaluation control, along with effective debugging strategies applicable across various coding scenarios. The updated edition features new foundational chapters, comprehensive object-oriented programming coverage, and enhanced metaprogramming insights, including the tidy evaluation framework. It also incorporates new packages like rlang for low-level operations and purrr for functional programming, while utilizing color in code chunks and figures. The author, Hadley Wickham, is a prominent figure in the R community, known for his contributions to data science through the tidyverse collection.