[R] X/Emacs and R in Linux

[Dan Bolser]

Martin Maechler said...
>
>>>>>> "lanceh" == lanceh  <lanceh at ibm.net> writes:
>
>    lanceh> Sorry if this is a redundent question but I searched the
>    lanceh> archives and although I found a couple of similar questions I
>    lanceh> saw no responses.  I am running in Linux and when I try to
>
>You should have looked in the R-FAQ (see footer of this E-mail) ..
>
>    lanceh> invoke R from either XEmacs or Emacs via 'M-x R' I get an 
>    lanceh> error
>    lanceh> message which basically says that Emacs doesn't understand
>    lunchh> the
>    lanceh> command.  What do I need to do so that X/Emacs will invoke R
>    lanceh> when I type 'M-x R'?
>
>You need to install the emacs package "ESS" (= Emacs Speaks Statistics).
>(works under both Emacs & XEmacs).
>You find it at any CRAN site, under   src/other/ess/.
>Installation instructions are included.
>
>There's a mailing list for ESS,  ess-help at stat.math.ethz.ch,
>in case you have problems in installation or usage of ESS.


Yikes! whatever happened to a good old 'INSTALL' file?

People should not assume that just because you use linux you automatically
know what you are doing!

First it took me ages to find the install instructions, they were hidden
on page nine of a pdf file called ess.pdf. Then it took me ages to
understand them. Their are a lot of comments in the file 'ess-site.el' and
I don't think I understood any of them. 

Normally I run emacs by typing 'emacs', I can honestly say I don't know
much more about how it works than that!

In the end I ignored this file and I just added the "(load
'path-to-ess-site.el-file')" to my .emacs file. 

compile bit code? not me!

Then it took me a long time to get going with emacs and ess, I had to
guess the R-mode command, as it is somehow assumed that you dont need it.

Now I am getting there, but easy it wasnt. 

Sorry for all the complaints,
Dan.