Downloading R and Other Tools

Downloading R

Below is a video on how to download R for windows. Below that is the written form of the steps.

To download R, follow these steps

1. Go to http://www.r-project.org/
2. On the left hand side, there should be black letters saying “Download”. Click on “CRAN” which is underneath it.
3. Here is a list of all the different places you can download it from. However, you are going to want to pick a location that is the closest to you. This will ensure that you have a faster download speed.
4. You should see a box on the top where you can download R for Linux, Mac, or Windows. Click on the link for your respective operating system. We will go over the next steps for Mac and Windows.
   1. Mac- Click on R-3.2.1.pkg if you have Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks). Click on R-3.2.1-snowleopard.pkg if you have Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.8 (Mountain Lion).
      1. You should now have a .pkg file downloading.
   2. Windows – Click on base.
      1. Next you will see the download link on the top of the page. It should say: Download R 3.2.1 for Windows. Click on it.
      2. The .exe files should begin to download.
5. Once the file has downloaded, click on the file and begin the installation process. Follow the steps carefully. It will guide you through the installation process.
6. Once the installation is complete, you should be able run the software.

Text Editors

An important tool that will help you write code faster and more accurately will be a good text editor. A text editor, like Notepad, is a program where you can write files for coding purposes. However, many of the standard text files are not adequate enough so that a coder can quickly find problems or mistakes in his or her code.

I suggest everyone to use Notepad++. It is a free text editor that works very well. Additionally, if you install Wine first, you should be able to run it on Mac and Linux as well ( I have not personally tested this, but I have heard it works well).

To download Notepad++, follow these instructions:

1. Go to https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
2. Click on “Download” on the left hand side.
3. Click on Notepad++ Installer
4. Once the .exe files has finished downloading, run it.
5. Follow the set instructions carefully.
6. Once the installation is complete, it should be able to run!

If anyone else has a preference on their own text editor, please feel free to sound it off in the comments down below!