Publications by David Smith
Redmonk Language Rankings, June 2018
The latest Redmonk Language Rankings are out. These rankings are published twice a year, and the top three positions in the June 2018 rankings remain unchanged from last time: JavaScript at #1, Java at #2, and Python at #3. The Redmonk rankings are based on Github repositories (as a proxy for developer activity) and StackOverflow activity (as a ...
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Microsoft R Open 3.5.1 now available
Microsoft R Open 3.5.1 has been released, combining the latest R language engine with multi-processor performance and tools for managing R packages reproducibly. You can download Microsoft R Open 3.5.1 for Windows, Mac and Linux from MRAN now. Microsoft R Open is 100% compatible with all R scripts and packages, and works with all your favorite R...
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Make R speak
Every wanted to make R talk to you? Now you can, with the mscstts package by John Muschelli. It provides an interface to the Microsoft Cognitive Services Text-to-Speech API (hence the name) in Azure, and you can use it to convert any short piece of text to a playable audio file, rendering it as speech using a number of different voices. Before ...
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Using gganimate to illustrate the luminance illusion
Many illusions are based on the fact that our perceptions of color or brightness of an object are highly dependent on the background surrounding the object. For example, in this image (an example of the Cornsweet illusion) the upper and lower blocks are exactly the same color, according to the pixels displayed on your screen. Mind = blown. These...
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The Chartmaker Directory: Data visualizations in every tool
Working with a new data visualization tool, and wondering how to create a specific type of chart? The Chartmaker Directory (designed by Andy Kirk) indexes more than 35 tools and over 50 charts, and provides links to examples from each combination. Here's an intentionally small detail from the index, where each hollow dot in a column represents a ...
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Videos from NYC R Conference
The videos from the NYC R conference have been published, and there are so many great talks there to explore. I highly recommend checking them out: you'll find a wealth of interesting R applications, informative deep dives on using R (and a few other applications as well), and some very entertaining deliveries. In this post, I wanted to highlight...
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Tips for analyzing Excel data in R
If you're familiar with analyzing data in Excel and want to learn how to work with the same data in R, Alyssa Columbus has put together a very useful guide: How To Use R With Excel. In addition to providing you with a guide for installing and setting up R and the RStudio IDE, it provide a wealth of useful tips for working with Excel data in R, i...
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Guide to a high-performance, powerful R installation
R is an amazing language with 25 years of development behind it, but you can make the most from R with additional components. An IDE makes developing in R more convenient; packages extend R's capabilities; and multi-threaded libraries make computations faster. Since these additional components aren't included on the official R website, getting ...
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Book review: SQL Server 2017 Machine Learning Services with R
If you want to do statistical analysis or machine learning with data in SQL Server, you can of course extract the data from SQL Server and then analyze it in R or Python. But a better way is to run R or Python within the database, using Microsoft ML Services in SQL Server 2017. Why? It's faster. Not only to you get to use the SQL Server insta...
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In case you missed it: August 2018 roundup
In case you missed them, here are some articles from August of particular interest to R users. A guide to installing R and RStudio with packages and multithreaded BLAS on various platforms. Some tips for Excel users migrating to R for data analysis. Videos of presentations from the New York R Conference. The Chartmaker Directory compares and prov...
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