welcome

Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-4 offer various opportunities for writing and working with code and data in typical R domains such as data handling, data analytics, and data visualization. People new to programming or R might wonder if they still need to learn how to program or if they can simply ask ChatGPT to do it for them. This book aims to provide guidelines on improving your R skills and data analytics workflows in R to be more productive in the age of LLMs.

There are two fundamental challenges to navigating the domain of AI-generated code: the hype about it and seemingly easy-to-use solutions that could partially replace humans as coders, and the rapidly evolving nature of LLMs and related tools. You might lose valuable time figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and which tools are best for your R coding workflows. While many good online resources (e.g., on YouTube) exist, they often oversimplify and might leave you wondering if it wouldn’t have been easier to write the code yourself. Focusing mainly on three different types of tools, aider, GitHub Copilot, and TheOpenAIR, this book has been written with exactly these challenges in mind.