C Getting help

We all get stuck sometimes and need some help. Below are some advises on how to help yourself and ask for help:

  • First try to understand the error message and solve the problem. You may try to debug your code by inserting break points in VBA or use browser() in your R code. See Chapter 11 in Bryan and H (n.d.) for further details.
  • Google is your friend. This is always the first step. Try searches like “vba range”, “r dplyr filter”, “r tidyverse”, “r subset vector”, etc.
  • Do you need help for a specific function in R then try ?[function-name] such as ?geom_line, ?mutate, etc. Mostly, focus on the last section with examples. Moreover, some packages may have written vignettes try browseVignettes(package = "package_name") to check.
  • Have a look at Help > Cheatsheets in RStudio.
  • If you can’t find an answer then it is time to ask on-line. I recommend asking a question at stackoverflow. To make your question effective, the idea is to make things as easy as possible for someone to answer. This stack overflow thread How to make a great R reproducible example? give you some good hints. The process of providing a good minimal reproducible example (reprex) often causes you to answer your own question! See also Stack Exchange’s ‘How to ask’ and How to make a reprex at tidyverse.
  • Another option is to use i.e. ChatGPT as a mentor for you. It is in general good at giving hints for programming tasks. Note use it as a mentor and not as a giving you the solution. For instance, ask “Given me an example on a Hello world procedure in VBA. Explain careful the code since I want to learn.”.
  • If you have a more course related question then ask it at our course forum and we will try to answer your question asap. Students are also welcome in helping each other.
  • You can also try to annotate the online course notes if something is unclear. I will try to answer asap.
  • You can get help from our TAs at study cafés.

Note help using mail correspondence is not supported!

References

Bryan, J., and J. H. n.d. What They Forgot to Teach You about r. https://rstats.wtf/.