[R] Summary: Interacting with R

[Martin Henry H. Stevens]

Many people replied. Thank you all very very much for the input. The sheer volume provided me with strong encouragement to make a leap into a programming environment.
Summary:
1. Nearly everyone suggested that I bite the bullet, get Emacs and ESS.
2. Most people also suggested using R-WinEdt with WinEdt (only on windows). 
3. Use the Display file menu item in Rgui to run parts of a program. This is more convenient
than ESS (and just one key stroke), although you can't edit in an R pager. (Thanks to BD Ripley).

Henry Stevens

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Uwe Ligges 
  To: Martin Henry H. Stevens 
  Cc: r-help at hypatia.math.ethz.ch 
  Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 11:05 AM
  Subject: Re: [R] Interacting with R


  > "Martin Henry H. Stevens" wrote:
  > 
  > Dear R folks,
  > 
  > (Running Windows 98, Pentium II, 128 Mb RAM)
  > 
  > I have been using Splus 2000 for about 1.5 years, and have recently
  > begun using R. I love the Open Source philosophy! I may be switching
  > to to Linux soon.
  > 
  > My question:
  > 
  > How do people most often interact with R?
  > 
  > In Splus 2000, I used "Script" windows to write functions. "Script"
  > windows were great because:
  > 
  >   1. they are simple to start and save,
  >   2. I could highlight segments of code and run segments,
  >   3. They have the nifty feature of highlighting each opening
  >      parenthesis as you type the corresponding closing parenthesis,
  >   4. They were in Splus itself.
  > 
  > Where would I look for a description of how folks interact with R to
  > perform comparable tasks? Is there an introduction or appendix
  > somewhere that walks a user through daily use that is a little beyond
  > the simple command line stuff in V&R 3rd edition or "R for beginners"
  > (E. Paradis 2000)? I thought I checked the standard documentation, but
  > may have missed the relevent part.
  > 
  > I have been writing functions and scripts in Word, saving as text
  > (with the .txt suffix I cannot get rid of) and then using "source()"
  > to implement functions. This is okay, but seems a little clumsy.


  There is ESS for the Emacs, which is very nice for interacting with R.
  If you have WinEdt available, you might also want to have a look at
  R-WinEdt (only on windows).

  Both abvailable at http://CRAN.R-Project.org/other-software.html

  Uwe Ligges

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