I’m Hadley Wickham, Chief Scientist at RStudio and creator of lots of R
packages (incl. ggplot2, dplyr, and devtools). I love R, data
analysis/science, visualisation: ask me anything!
Abstract
Broadly, I’m interested in the process of data analysis/science and how
to make it easier, faster, and more fun. That’s what has lead to the
development of my most popular packages like ggplot2, dplyr, tidyr,
stringr. This year, I’ve been particularly interested in making it as
easy as possible to get data into R. That’s lead to my work on the DBI,
haven, readr, readxl, and httr packages. Please feel free to ask me
anything about the craft of data science. I’m also broadly interested in
the craft of programming, and the design of programming languages. I’m
interested in helping people see the beauty at the heart of R and learn
to master it as easily as possible. As well as a number of packages like
devtools, testthat, and roxygen2, I’ve written two books along those
lines: Advanced R, which teaches R as a programming language, mostly
divorced from its usual application as a data analysis tool. R packages,
which teaches software development best practices for R: documentation,
unit testing, etc. Please ask me anything about R programming! Other
things you might want to ask me about: I work at RStudio. I’m the chair
of the infrastructure steering committee of the R Consortium. I’m a
member of the R Foundation. I’m a fellow in the American Statistical
Association. I’m an Adjunct Professor of Statistics at Rice University:
that means they don’t pay me and I don’t do any work for them, but I
still get to use the library. I was a full time Assistant Professor for
four years before joining RStudio. These days I do a lot of programming
in C++ via Rcpp. Many questions about my background, and how I got into
R, are answered in my interview at priceonomics. A lot of people ask me
how I can get so much done: there are some good answers at quora. In
either case, feel free to ask for more details! Outside of work, I enjoy
baking, cocktails, and bbq: you can see my efforts at all three on my
instagram. I’m unlikely to be able to answer any terribly specific
questions (I’m an amateur at all three), but I can point you to my
favourite recipes and things that have helped me learn. I’ll be back at
3 PM ET to answer your questions. ASK ME ANYTHING! Update: proof that
it’s me Update: taking a break. Will check back in later and answer any
remaining popular/interesting questions