Statistical Computing: Spring 2018

Statistics 36-350

Instructor: Ryan Tibshirani (ryantibs at cmu dot edu)
Associate Instructor: Kevin Lin (kevinl1 at andrew dot cmu dot edu)

Important note: please direct inquiries on all course related matters to Associate Instructor Kevin Lin. The subject line of all emails should begin with "[36-350]".

TAs:
Tanguy Dauphin (tdauphin at andrew dot cmu dot edu)
Taylor Pospisil (tpospisi at andrew dot cmu dot edu)
Shamindra Shrotriya (sshrotri at andrew dot cmu dot edu)

Lecture times: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12-1:20pm, Baker Hall A51

Office hours:
RT: Mondays 3-4pm, Wednesdays 2-3pm, Fridays 1-2pm in Baker Hall 229B
TD: Thursdays 1:30-2:30pm in Baker 232K
TP: Fridays 4-5pm in Wean 4625
SS: Thursdays 10-11am in Baker 132Q

Syllabus: here. Discussions: Piazza group.

Class schedule

Week 1 (Tues Jan 16 + Thur Jan 18). Basic data structures.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Intruder code: intruder_demo.R, intruder.R
- Lab 1: html, Rmd (due Sunday at 10pm, note different time)
- No homework! Use the time to learn basics of R, if you need to
- Supplementary online intro to R (by Howard Seltman): IROL
Week 2 (Tues Jan 23 + Thur Jan 25). Indexing and iteration.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 2: html, Rmd
- Hw 1: html, Rmd
Week 3 (Tues Jan 30 + Thur Feb 1). Text manipulation.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 3: html, Rmd
- Hw 2: html, Rmd
Week 4 (Tues Feb 6 + Thur Feb 8). Data frames and apply. (Missed week.)
Week 5 (Tues Feb 13 + Thur Feb 15). Data frames and apply.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 4: html, Rmd
- Hw 3: html, Rmd
Week 6 (Tues Feb 20 + Thur Feb 22). Plotting.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 5: html, Rmd
- Hw 4: html, Rmd
Week 7 (Tues Feb 27 + Thur Mar 1). Functions.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 6: html, Rmd
- Hw 5: html, Rmd
Week 8 (Tues Mar 6 + Thur Mar 8). Simulation.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 7: html, Rmd
- Hw 6: html, Rmd
Week 9. No class: Spring Break!
Week 10 (Tues Mar 20 + Thur Mar 22). Reading in and manipulating data.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 8: html, Rmd
- Hw 7: html, Rmd
Week 11 (Tues Mar 27 + Thur Mar 29). Fitting models to data.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 9: html, Rmd
- Hw 8: html, Rmd
Week 12 (Tues Apr 3 + Thur Apr 5). Split-apply-combine.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 10: html, Rmd
- Hw 9: html, Rmd
Week 13 (Tues Apr 10 + Thur Apr 12). Debugging and testing.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 11: html, Rmd
- Hw 10: html, Rmd
Week 14 (Tues Apr 17). Version control and git.
No class Thursday: Spring Carnival!
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 12: html, Rmd
- No homework!
Week 15 (Tues Apr 24 + Thur Apr 26). Relational databases.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 13: html, Rmd
- Hw 11: html, Rmd
Week 16 (Tues May 1 + Thur May 3). Statistical prediction.
No class Thursday.
- Notes: slides, html, Rmd
- Lab 14: html, Rmd
- Take-home exam: html, Rmd

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Supplementary materials

Supplementary textbooks on R programming:

The R Cookbook, by Paul Teetor
The R Graphics Cookbook, by Winston Chang
The Art of R Programming: A Tour of Statistical Software Design, by Norman Matloff
Data Manipulation with R, by Phil Spector
Software for Data Analysis: Programming with R, by John Chambers (advanced book)

Online resources for R programming:

The official intro, "An Introduction to R", available online in html and pdf versions
simpleR, by John Verzani
Google R Style Guide offers some rules for naming, spacing, etc., which are generally good ideas
Quick-R, this is primarily aimed at those who already know a commercial statistics package like SAS, SPSS or Stata, but it's very clear and well-organized, and others may find it useful as well
The R Inferno, by Patrick Burns ("If you are using R and you think you're in hell, this is a map for you")
R Fundamentals and Programming Techniques, by Thomas Lumley

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