Intro
Over the years, I’ve slowly collected a set of websites to look at for information. Now, there isn’t enough time in a day to read in-depth each website. So, I end up “skim-reading” many different websites and gain new information from talking on different R-oriented Slack groups. Through these outlets, I’ve managed to stay a bit more up-to-date with changes in R.
Websites
The main portal into R’s development process is:
http://developer.r-project.org
Part of my daily routine is:
- View the latest changes in the r-devel
NEWSfile - Check out the new packages posted to CRAN
- CRANberries by Dirk Eddelbuettel
- Official CRAN package posting
- Unfortunately, this has less information than the CRANberries view.
- See if any new posts were added to R Core Development Blog
At least once a week, I strive to look at a couple of community run sites:
- RWeekly: Curration of events in the R world.
- rOpenSci’s Blog: Trends in using R in the sciences.
From there, I look at trends from the commercial software industry around R. I make this distinction as they are offering a product, not just knowledge. Generally, the product needs to sell for the company to remain solvent.
- Win-Vector’s Blog: In-depth and short posts on R in real-world situations from a consultant’s perspective.
- RStudio
- Microsoft
Lastly, there is an added benefit of monitoring CRAN Task Views for new software in a given discipline or field. For instance, you can learn about R packages in, Machine Learning, Databases, Econometrics, or Psychometrics. Packages that are listed here have generally been screened by both CRAN and a subject matter expert in the given field. Therefore, the quality of packages found on a Task View will be relatively high.