This is a beginer guide to learn ggplot2 with excercises.

Since I use R for six years, I thought maybe it is the time to write some simple guide about R plotting for other new users. So I write the first word about learn ggplot2 the hard way on January 21 2016, but just let it lying in my draft folder for about six months.

To be honest, it is easy to plotting with ggplot2 package than using the basic graphics package. For me, graphics is a powerful tools to create figures in R, and ggplot2 is a fast tool to visualize data. It is difficult to say which package is the best. There are also some discussion about it, for example Comparing ggplot2 and R Base Graphics and Why I don’t use ggplot2.

Last month (May 2016), I wrote a simple guide about R plotting in Chinese. I found my old project about learn ggplot2 the hard way is all most can not finished. Actually, a ‘learn X the hard way’ style book doesn’t work well for me to learn any code. So I rename learn ggplot2 the hard way to learn ggplot2 in practice. I would also open a new project about plot the same figure using ggplot2 and R base graphics (it is the English version of my R plotting simple guide). Hope I can finish one of them in this month (June 2016).

That’s all. Thanks for reading.