About this course: This course covers advanced topics in R programming that are necessary for developing powerful, robust, and reusable data science tools. Topics covered include functional programming in R, robust error handling, object oriented programming, profiling and benchmarking, debugging, and proper design of functions. Upon completing this course you will be able to identify and abstract common data analysis tasks and to encapsulate them in user-facing functions. Because every data science environment encounters unique data challenges, there is always a need to develop custom software specific to your organization’s mission. You will also be able to define new data types in R and to develop a universe of functionality specific to those data types to enable cleaner execution of data science tasks and stronger reusability within a team.
Created by: Johns Hopkins University
Taught by: Roger D. Peng, PhD, Associate Professor, Biostatistics
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Taught by: Brooke Anderson, Assistant Professor, Environmental & Radiological Health Sciences
Colorado State University
| Basic Info | Course 2 of 5 in the Mastering Software Development in R Specialization |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Language | English, Subtitles: Chinese (Simplified) |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Welcome to Advanced R Programming
This course covers advanced topics in R programming that are necessary for developing powerful, robust, and reusable data science tools. Topics covered include functional programming in R, robust error handling, object oriented programming, profiling and benchmarking, debugging, and proper design of functions. Upon completing this course you will be able to identify and abstract common data analysis tasks and to encapsulate them in user-facing functions. Because every data science environment encounters unique data challenges, there is always a need to develop custom software specific to your organization’s mission. You will also be able to define new data types in R and to develop a universe of functionality specific to those data types to enable cleaner execution of data science tasks and stronger reusability within a team.
1 video, 3 readings
- Video: Welcome to Advanced R Programming
- Reading: Syllabus
- Reading: Course Textbook: Mastering Software Development in R
- Reading: swirl Assignments
Functions
This module begins with control structures in R for controlling the logical flow of an R program. We then move on to functions, their role in R programming, and some guidelines for writing good functions.
17 readings
- Reading: Control Structures Overview
- Reading: if-else
- Reading: for Loops
- Reading: Nested for loops
- Reading: next, break
- Reading: Summary
- Reading: Functions Overview
- Reading: Code
- Reading: Function interface
- Reading: Default values
- Reading: Re-factoring code
- Reading: Dependency Checking
- Reading: Vectorization
- Reading: Argument Checking
- Reading: R package
- Reading: When Should I Write a Function?
- Reading: Summary
Graded: Swirl Lesson
WEEK 2
Functional Programming
Functional programming is a key aspect of R and is one of R's differentiating factors as a data analysis language. Understanding the concepts of functional programming will help you to become a better data science software developer. In addition, we cover error and exception handling in R for writing robust code.
19 readings
- Reading: What is Functional Programming?
- Reading: Core Functional Programming Functions
- Reading: Map
- Reading: Reduce
- Reading: Search
- Reading: Filter
- Reading: Compose
- Reading: Partial Application
- Reading: Side Effects
- Reading: Recursion
- Reading: Summary
- Reading: Expressions
- Reading: Environments
- Reading: Execution Environments
- Reading: What is an error?
- Reading: Generating Errors
- Reading: When to generate errors or warnings
- Reading: How should errors be handled?
- Reading: Summary
Graded: Swirl Lesson
WEEK 3
Debugging and Profiling
Debugging tools are useful for analyzing your code when it exhibits unexpected behavior. We go through the various debugging tools in R and how they can be used to identify problems in code. Profiling tools allow you to see where your code spends its time and to optimize your code for maximum efficiency.
15 readings
- Reading: Debugging Overview
- Reading: traceback()
- Reading: Browsing a Function Environment
- Reading: Tracing Functions
- Reading: Using debug() and debugonce()
- Reading: recover()
- Reading: Final Thoughts on Debugging
- Reading: Summary
- Reading: Profiling Overview
- Reading: microbenchmark
- Reading: profvis
- Reading: Find out more
- Reading: Summary
- Reading: Non-standard evaluation
- Reading: Summary
Graded: Debugging and Profiling
WEEK 4
Object-Oriented Programming
Object oriented programming allows you to define custom data types or classes and a set of functions for handling that data type in a way that you define. R has a three different methods for implementing object oriented programming and we will cover them in this section.
11 readings
- Reading: OOP Overview
- Reading: Object Oriented Principles
- Reading: S3
- Reading: S4
- Reading: Reference Classes
- Reading: Summary
- Reading: Overview
- Reading: Reuse existing data structures
- Reading: Compose simple functions with the pipe
- Reading: Embrace functional programming
- Reading: Design for humans
Graded: Functional and Object-Oriented Programming
FAQs
How It Works
Coursework
Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.
Help from Your Peers
Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.
Certificates
Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.
Creators
Johns Hopkins University
The mission of The Johns Hopkins University is to educate its students and cultivate their capacity for life-long learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.
Pricing
| Purchase Course | Audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Access to course materials | Available | Available |
| Access to graded materials | Available | Not available |
| Receive a final grade | Available | Not available |
| Earn a shareable Course Certificate | Available | Not available |
Ratings and Reviews
Excellent course for improving R programming skills. Highly recommended.
I think the course introduced some useful packages like purrr and concepts like map/reduce, but I think the explanation into the different OO systems could be improved. I struggled a lot with the final assignment and really depended on external sources of information to complete it.
Excellent, but I would be grateful if you could translate all your courses of absolute quality into Spanish.
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CI
This course helped me to figure out what additional skills I need to work on to improve my R coding skills.