Exploratory data visualization is perhaps the greatest strength of R. One can quickly go from idea to data to plot with a unique balance of flexibility and ease. For example, Excel may be easier than R for some plots, but it is nowhere near as flexible. D3.js may be more flexible and powerful than R, but it takes much longer to generate a plot.

Throughout the book, we will be creating plots using the ggplot2 package.

library(dplyr)
library(ggplot2)