While working on my final project this evening, I had a realization. Not only was I having a "friendly" interaction with R, but I actually understood what it was telling me. Working with this program has been a strange conversational evolution. In the beginning, I didn't know how to talk to it and when I haphazardly managed a response from it, I didn't understand what it was telling me. Now, I've learned how to speak the R language (admittedly not fluently!) and the statistical language it spits back at me is making more and more sense everyday.
I also glanced back at some of the preliminary analyses I attempted on my data set before taking this class and it sent a shiver up my spine. It's amazing how far I've come from those frustrated fumblings with JMP 5.1 and SigmaPlot.
It's a good feeling to think that all of those long nights with Verzani, Gotelli, Ellison and R are paying off.
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I agree - it's definitely a good feeling, and a rewarding one. I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical at the beginning of the semester as to how a text-based program could be so useful, but as you say, it's just a question of learning how to "converse" to it in the right way. It's a steep learning curve and while I still don't think I'm anywhere near the top (in terms of becoming completely proficient), what we've learned so far will definitely be useful.
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