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Fluctuat nec mergitur
How to be a resilient R user

MaΓ«lle Salmon
ma_salmon maelle masalmon.eu

2019/01/10

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How to be a resilient R user?

Know that feeling?

via GIPHY

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How to be a resilient R user?

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How to be a resilient R user?

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How to be a resilient R user?

I'll share tips in two categories!

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How to be a resilient R user?

I'll share tips in two categories!

  • πŸ“° Keep up to date with R news... without feeling overwhelmed.
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How to be a resilient R user?

I'll share tips in two categories!

  • πŸ“° Keep up to date with R news... without feeling overwhelmed.

  • ❓ Ask for help when needed, in an efficient way, in the right place.

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How to be a resilient R user?

I'll share tips in two categories!

  • πŸ“° Keep up to date with R news... without feeling overwhelmed.

  • ❓ Ask for help when needed, in an efficient way, in the right place.

πŸ”— Slidedeck up at tiny.cc/rladiesparis

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My place in the R community

  • Part-time work at rOpenSci & Locke Data.
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My place in the R community

  • R-Ladies Global social master

  • R Weekly team member (and blogger myself!)

  • Volunteer editor for rOpenSci software peer review

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How to stay informed

via GIPHY

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Why to stay informed

  • Solving the problems you didn't know you had

  • Solving the problems you will have

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Why to stay informed

  • Solving the problems you didn't know you had

  • Solving the problems you will have

By

πŸ›  learning about tools

🏭 learning about people/organizations

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Infinite information flows

  • Twitter #rstats hashtag, Twitter timeline

  • GitHub timeline

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Infinite information flows

  • Twitter #rstats hashtag, Twitter timeline

  • GitHub timeline

My tips

  • Don't be a completist!

  • MUTE the spam & what you don't like

  • Follow accounts useful to you

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News aggregators

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News aggregators

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R conferences

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R conferences

Attend or...

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R conferences

Attend or...

Make the most of what's online!

  • Read the programs

  • Read the slidedecks

  • Watch the videos

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How to know about R conferences

R Weekly conferences section πŸš€!

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How to know about R conferences

R Weekly conferences section πŸš€!

Examples of conference material available for free πŸ’ƒ

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Side-note, if you wanna speak...

R-Ladies abstract review system! Thanks Jennifer Thompson!

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Other sources of information

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What to do with the information?

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What to do with the information?

Assess it!

  • Much like you assess any piece of information

  • By asking other people, see next section

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What to do with the information?

Assess it!

  • Much like you assess any piece of information

  • By asking other people, see next section

For packages there are objective criteria.

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How to assess packages?

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How to assess packages?

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Assessment criteria for packages

  • How active is its development?

  • How well tested is it?

  • How well documented is it?

  • How popular is it?

  • Is it developed by a person/org you trust?

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Assessment criteria for packages

  • How active is its development?

  • How well tested is it?

  • How well documented is it?

  • How popular is it?

  • Is it developed by a person/org you trust?

Related to work in https://github.com/ropenscilabs/packagemetrics

See also https://simplystatistics.org/2015/11/06/how-i-decide-when-to-trust-an-r-package/

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How to assess a package

LIVE DEMO

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What to do with the information?

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What to do with the information?

  • Use right away in real work?
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What to do with the information?

  • Use right away in real work?

  • Try it right away?

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What to do with the information?

  • Use right away in real work?

  • Try it right away?

  • Store the information somehow

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How to store information

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How to store information

Find your own system! Keep the resources for yourself, or share.

πŸ“Œ Print cheatsheets, make your own cheatsheets

πŸ“Œ Create a private/public treasure trove like Suzan Baert's resources repo

Post by Lise Vaudor in French: "Comment se souvenir de tout"

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How to ask for help

via GIPHY

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My typology of R questions

  • Problem! Bug! Error!
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My typology of R questions

  • Problem! Bug! Error!

  • Discussion/debate (is there a tool in R for doing foo? how do I learn about bar? is ggplot2 better than base plots?)

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My typology of R questions

  • Problem! Bug! Error!

  • Discussion/debate (is there a tool in R for doing foo? how do I learn about bar? is ggplot2 better than base plots?)

We'll tackle errors first.

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When to ask for help?

After a reasonable effort to solve your problem on your own.

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When to ask for help?

After a reasonable effort to solve your problem on your own.

πŸ” Read the docs,

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When to ask for help?

After a reasonable effort to solve your problem on your own.

πŸ” Read the docs,

πŸ” Use a search engine (i.e. google your error message!),

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When to ask for help?

After a reasonable effort to solve your problem on your own.

πŸ” Read the docs,

πŸ” Use a search engine (i.e. google your error message!),

πŸ” Experiment.

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Googling for help

From http://datacarpentry.org/semester-biology/materials/googling-for-help/

  • Get the vocabularly right
  • Avoid extra words
  • Specify the language

And assess results' credibility (site, authors, date, scores, etc.)

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Experiment, Γ  la RDogLady

Trying stuff until it works

Trying stuff until it works

Image by The Practical Dev

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Experiment, Γ  la RCatLady

Changing stuff and seeing what happens

Changing stuff and seeing what happens

Image by The Practical Dev

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Error solving with reprex

Goal: from a bug in your big script to the tiniest buggy script possible.

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Error solving with reprex

Goal: from a bug in your big script to the tiniest buggy script possible.

Jenny Bryan's reprex & its docs

  • A concept, reprex for "reproducible example".

  • A great package for communicating a reprex.

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Why use reprex?

  • Tiniest buggy script possible is easier to fix! Or you'll even fix things in the process!

  • You can send your question/bug report in a good format for helpers!

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reprex demo!

via GIPHY

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Where to ask for help?

The right place depends on:

  • your question

  • your confidence

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Safest places

  • your colleagues or friends
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Safest places

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Safest places

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Safest places

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Public Q&As 1/2

  • In packages: Bug reports. See package docs, or find their online home.
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Public Q&As 1/2

  • In packages: Bug reports. See package docs, or find their online home.

  • Stack Overflow. For short questions/bugs/errors only.

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Public Q&As 1/2

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Public Q&A 2/2

  • Twitter #rstats. Short questions, or link to longer questions.
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Public Q&A 2/2

  • Twitter #rstats. Short questions, or link to longer questions.

  • rOpenSci forum

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Public Q&A 2/2

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Where to ask for help?

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Where to ask for help?

Finding the right place might require some trial and error. πŸ•΅οΈβ€β™€οΈ

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Where to ask for help?

Finding the right place might require some trial and error. πŸ•΅οΈβ€β™€οΈ

Further resources

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Help others with their R problems!

  • because it's a nice thing to do πŸ˜‰

  • because it's fun (trivia! puzzles!) πŸ€“

  • to keep your knowledge active & learn things πŸ’ͺ

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Stay calm, learn how to

  • πŸ“° Read the news,

  • ❓ Ask for help.

tiny.cc/rladiesparis

Slides created via the R package xaringan by Yihui Xie with the R-Ladies theme by Alison Presmanes Hill πŸ’œ.

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How to be a resilient R user?

Know that feeling?

via GIPHY

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