Important/useful skills for Unconference

[SimonLyons]

Hi everyone,
I'm excited about being a part of my first R group collaboration and I'm keen to contribute as much as possible. However I'm relatively new to R (and definitely new to these style of events). For those of you who are old hands are this sort of thing, I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share the types of skills, or identify which R capabilities are likely to be most useful.
I know there's only so much that can be absorbed in a week, but I'm thinking I may not be the only one who would benefit from a bit of last minute cramming! :)
Cheers,
Simon

[MilesMcBain]

Great question. At the last Unconf I actually learned a lot about git and github! We're going to have a session on the Thursday arvo 4-6pm at The Edge, Southbank, before the meet and greet to go over some of that and related R concepts. If you're new to git as well it would be worth attending.

Otherwise, there's a good chance you'll be working with people on some kind of package or a markdown document. So getting to grips with R markdown and the structure of R packages is going to help you stay oriented with what the group is trying to achieve.

[MilesMcBain]

Also, you might want to checkout the repo links in the Highlights section of the last Unconf: http://auunconf.ropensci.org/

[adamhsparks]

I'd suggest,

• Have RStudio installed, be comfortable using it.
• Have a GitHub account (you do), know what a pull request is and how to make one, how to set up new repositories and clone it to your machine or create one locally and push it to GitHub.
• Know how to install packages from CRAN and GitHub.
• As @MilesMcBain said, R markdown and the structure of R packages (you don't have to know how to make one but it's useful to understand the directory structure and the does and don'ts).

As @MilesMcBain said, I learned quite a bit in two days about Git and GitHub (and R) last year.

[SimonLyons]

Thanks @MilesMcBain and @adamhsparks . Great suggestions! I'm definitely weak on my understanding of the structure of R Packages and taking a look at the repo links for the last event is a fantastic idea.

[jesse-jesse]

Hey Simon,

I am sure there will be other people that are weak on their understanding of the structure of R packages (for example me), and other aspects of getting up and going. So, please do share any good resources :)

[robjhyndman]

A very good intro to R packages is provided by Hadley Wickham at http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/

An equally good intro to git/github is provided by Jenny Bryan at http://happygitwithr.com/

Spending some time going through those two online books is well worth it.

[SimonLyons]

Thanks for sharing those links Rob. I'll check them out before Friday.
I've been working through creating packages using the quick and dirty guide by @hspter (Hilary Parker):
https://hilaryparker.com/2014/04/29/writing-an-r-package-from-scratch/

[adamhsparks]

@SimonLyons, I started with that one. It's a good one.