The tidyverse also includes many other packages with more specialised usage. R uses factors to handle categorical variables, variables that have a fixed and known set of possible values. You can expect to update RStudio much more often than R itself.įor example, I update RStudio every month or so, whereas I update R 1 or 2 times per year.Forcats provides a suite of useful tools that solve common problems with factors. The Preview version includes new (upcoming) features, but it is also generally very stable and highly usable. The Preview version is often the same as the general release.īut in the build-up to a new general release, the Preview release is used for release candidates. Unless you have a specific reason to prefer the released version, try the Preview. In particular, you can no longer install pre-built binary add-on packages from CRAN. Once you are 2 minor versions behind (4.5.whatever or earlier in this example), you will start to suffer. It’s probably OK if you are still on 4.6.whatever, which is one minor version behind and is called “r-oldrel”.īeing one minor version behind usually doesn’t cause trouble. As the 4.something series unfolds, I advise that you never fall more than 1 minor version behind.Ĭoncrete example: let’s say the released version of R is 4.7.1, which is totally fictional and well beyond the current version of R at the time of writing. You can be more relaxed about upgrading minor versions, but you still want to stay reasonably current. It is a good idea to be on the current major version, meaning 4.something at this point, especially if you want to get the most out of a workshop.Įach major version is followed by several years of smaller releases (minor and patch releases). Is your R version “old”? R had a major version change in April 2020, with the release of 4.0.0. By definition, these problems are going away and we’d rather focus on edge cases with current versions, which affect lots of people. Also, frankly, there is a limit to our motivation. In live workshops, there is a limit to how much we can help with ancient versions of R or RStudio. But at some point, running old versions of software adds unnecessary difficulty.

You don’t want to adopt new things on day one.

5.1 How to think about upgrading R and RStudio

Update rstudio windows