Programming Prerequisites for Statistical Computing Courses

To take a full course in statistical computing you must have learned and used a computer language such as Basic, C, C++, Java, Javascript, Fortran, Python, Perl, S, or R. If you do not know a computer language, you should master the book Computer Programming for Dummies, 2nd Edition by Wallace Wang, New York: Hungry Minds Inc., 2001, or a similar book. Be sure to actually run the exercises using Basic (provided on the CD-ROM). You can skip the following parts of Wang's book:

Topic	Pages
Random-access files	174-179
Making and deleting directories	179-181
Creating a user interface	183-205
Manipulating and retrieving records and
Using records with arrays	229-232
Linked lists and pointers	233-246
Inheritance and creating and using objects	252-258
Part V	259-298
Creating hyperlinks...	314-325

Scan Chapters 24-27 quickly, to get more background about computer environments.

Some of our courses will use the S language upon which the open source http://www.r-project.org R system is based.

-- FrankHarrell - 02 Feb 2004