Review of “R Graphs Cookbook” by Hrishi Mittal

January 24, 2011

(This article was first published on Portfolio Probe » R language, and kindly contributed to R-bloggers)

Executive summary: Extremely useful for new users, informative to even quite seasoned users.

Refereeing

Once upon a time a publisher asked if I would referee a book (unspecified) about R. In an instance that can only be described as psychotic I said yes. That bit of insanity turned out to be a good thing.

I was treated to chapters of a cookbook on R graphics doled out in installments, like how Thackeray’s Vanity Fair was originally published.

It is fairly embarrassing how much I learned from the book.

The format

All you need to know about each task is presented in specific sections:

The task: what is to be done
Getting ready: packages that might need to be attached, for instance
How to do it …: the R code
How it works …: a brief explanation of what the code means
There’s more …: variations on the theme

You only need to get your own data into R in order to get similar plots that you care about.

Downside

The graphs are in black and white, not color — at least in the hardcopy version. Heatmaps in grayscale are suboptimal. The Panglossian view is that this will encourage readers to create the graphs themselves.

I made an effort to rid the book of the L-word when “package” is meant. The L-word is “library” (see Some quibbles about “The R Book” and its comments for more on this). Alas, I failed. I fear I’ll be expelled from the JaRgon Police Force.