st: R for Stata Users

["Airey, David C" <david.airey@vanderbilt.edu>]

.

For Stata users, this is a good book.

One of the biggest hurdles a Stata user will have in using or interpreting R code, never mind the syntax zoo that different R packages present, is understanding indexing of the various R data structures (vector, matrix, data frame, array, list) in relation to data management needs (e.g., subsets). The book "R for Stata Users" devotes a huge amount of space to these topics (selecting by row, by column, etc.). Even so, I found myself Googling for solutions like how to extract something out of an anova() table that was hardly intuitive, until you understand anova() leaves behind a list of objects, how you index list objects, and how you index the list object you want.

mean.square.r = summary(myanova)[[1]]["Residuals",3]

Anyway, I completed a fairly (for me) complicated simulation using R (the PI does not simulate with Stata), and the book "R for Stata Users" was quite helpful at times. Finally, I can say I understand some R in addition to a little Stata.
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/