[ESS] recognizing R-alpha with ESS

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "StEgl" == Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen at damtp.cam.ac.uk>
>>>>>     on Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:37:54 +0000 writes:

    >> ;; but these are not :
    >> (defun R-beta (&optional start-args)
    ....
    >> (defun R-alpha (&optional start-args)
    ....
    >> (defun R-rc (&optional start-args)
    ....
    >> (defun R-pre-rel (&optional start-args)
    ....

    StEgl> hi martin, if names like "R-alpha" are anywhere near as standardly
    StEgl> used as R-devel, why don't we just extend the regexp that searches for
    StEgl> R versions, namely:

    StEgl> ess-r-versions is a variable defined in `essd-r.el'.

    StEgl> Its value is 
    StEgl>   ("R-1" "R-2" "R-devel" "R-patched")

I'd assume they are considerably more rarely in use,
particularly the 'R-pre-rel' has been my own invention to
subsume {R-alpha, R-beta, R-rc}, so I'd guess that "R-pre-rel"
has been in use by exactly one person and only for a couple of
weeks every year,....
but I don't really know.

Originally, I had assumed that people smart enough to add
"R-alpha" to their PATH  would also know how to add such dummy
emacs functions, but that assumption was clearly wrong.
OTOH, these other prefixes to the ess-r-versions
will make the initial "searching for R versions" slightly slower
for everyone, so I'd be a bit reluctant to add more strings
there.  
Or is the above "slower" not noticable anyway?

Martin