Improvements to Docker Section for R

[derekrodgers]

Per Tiffany's request, here are some issues my DSCI 522 team ran into when attempting to implement contianerization using Docker by following the instructions in this textbook:

• The textbook says to use rocker/tidyverse as the base image, but Tiffany explained during Office Hours that the generally preferred base image for R containers is rocker/verse.
• The lectures covered using Renv to install packages in the image. However, Tiffany explained that an easier and more commonly-used solution is calling RUN install2.r in the Dockerfile.
• The official Docker docs caution against using the flag --platform=linux/amd64 (see here in lecture notes), and the build command throws the warning FROM --platform flag should not use constant value "linux/amd64" when the flag is invoked. We were told this flag is necessary to avoid issues on ARM64 macs, and this certainly seems correct. However, the warning flag and contradiction with the official docs is confusing and the textbook should probably provide a rationale for why the docs should be ignored in this case.

These discrepancies caused quite a bit of friction during the grading process: following Tiffany's instructions caused TAs to repeatedly deduct points from our group's milestones, as they did not understand that (or why) the above approach is preferred. This meant that Daniel had to intervene directly multiple times to regrade our milestones himself.

It's my understanding that ours was one of only two groups in the cohort that chose to use R for our DSCI 522 project, but it is nonetheless offered as a choice, so the textbook and grading guidelines should probably be updated in order to bring everything into alignment.