Suppose that you would like to create a function which does a series of computations on a data frame. You would like to pass a column as this function’s argument. Something like:

data(cars)
convertToKmh <- function(dataset, col_name){
  dataset$col_name <- dataset$speed * 1.609344
  return(dataset)
}

This example is obviously not very interesting (you don’t need a function for this), but ... [Read more...]

tryCatch is one of the functions that allows the users to handle errors in a simple way. With it, you can do things like: if(error), then(do this). Take the following example:

sqrt("a")
Error in sqrt("a") : non-numeric argument to mathematical function

Now maybe you’d want something to happen when such an error happens. You can achieve ... [Read more...]

I've been introduced to unit testing while working with colleagues on quite a big project for which we use Python. At first I was a bit skeptical about the need of writing unit tests, but now I must admit that I am seduced by the idea and by the huge ... [Read more...]

I’m currently working on a paper (with my colleague Vincent Vergnat who is also a Phd candidate at BETA) where I want to estimate the causal impact of the birth of a child on hourly and daily wages as well as yearly worked hours. For this we are using ... [Read more...]