We have already worked with some of the packages required for this chapter, such as ggplot2 and lubridate. The other three packages are introduced to benchmark functions and compare their performance among themselves, and for advanced optimization techniques like delegation and parallelization, which will be explained in their respective sections.
To be able to replicate all the examples in this chapter, you also need working compilers for Fortran and C++ code. Refer to Appendix, Required Packages, for instructions on how to install them for your operating system.
Let's take a look at the following table depicting the uses of the required packages:
|
Packages |
Reason |
|
ggplot2 |
High-quality graphs |
|
lubridate |
Easily transfer dates |
|
microbenchmark |
Benchmark functions' performance |
