The Shape of Code

So you have read my (draft) book on evidence-based software engineering and want to learn more about the statistical techniques used, but are not interested lots of detailed mathematics. What books do I suggest?

All the following books are sitting on the shelf next to where I write (not that they get read that much these days).

Before I took the training wheels off my R usage, my general go to book was (I still look at it from time to time): “The R Book” by Crawley, second edition; “R in Action” by Kabacoff is a good general read.

In alphabetical subject order:

Categorical data: “Categorical Data Analysis” by Agresti, the third edition is a weighty tomb (in content and heaviness). Plenty of maths+example; more of a reference.

Compositional data: “Analyzing compositional data with R” by van den Boogaart and Tolosana-Delgado, is more or less the only book of its kind. Thankfully, it is quite good.

Count data: “Modeling count data” by Hilbe, may be more than you want to know about count data. Readable.

Circular data: “Circular statistics in R” by Pewsey, Neuhauser and Ruxton, is the only non-pure theory book available. The material seems to be there, but is brief.

Experiments: “Design and analysis of experiments” by Montgomery.

General: “Applied linear statistical models” by Kutner, Nachtsheim, Neter and Li, covers a wide range of topics (including experiments) using a basic level of mathematics.

Machine learning: “An Introduction to Statistical Learning: with Applications in R” by James, Witten, Hastie and Tibshirani, is more practical (but not dumbed down, like some) and less maths (a common problem with machine learning books, e.g., “The Elements of Statistical Learning”). Watch out for the snake-oil salesmen using machine learning.

Mixed-effects models: “Mixed-effects models in S and S-plus” by Pinheiro and Bates, is probably the book I prefer; “Mixed effects models and extensions in ecology with R” by Zuur, Ieno, Walker, Saveliev and Smith, is another view on an involved topic (plus lots of ecological examples).

Modeling: “Statistical rethinking” by McElreath, is full of interesting modeling ideas, using R and Stan. I wish I had some data to try out some of these ideas.

Regression analysis: “Applied Regression Analysis and Generalized Linear Models” by Fox, now in its third edition (I also have the second edition). I found this the most useful book, of those available, for a more detailed discussion of regression analysis. Some people like “Regression modeling strategies” by Harrell, but this does not appeal to me.

Survival analysis: “Introducing survival and event history analysis” by Mills, is a readable introduction covering everything; “Survival analysis” by Kleinbaum and Klein, is full of insights but more of a book to dip into.

Time series: The two ok books are: “Time series analysis and its application: with R examples” by Shumway and Stoffler, contains more theory, while “Time series analysis: with applications in R” by Cryer and Chan, contains more R code.

There are lots of other R/statistics books on my shelves (just found out I have 31 of Springer’s R books), some ok, some not so. I have a few ‘programming in R’ style books; if you are a software developer, R the language is trivial to learn (its library is another matter).

Suggestions for books covering topics I have missed welcome, or your own preferences (as a software developer).