[ESS] ess-help+.el

[A.J. Rossini]

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Rodney Sparapani <rsparapa at mcw.edu> wrote:
> Vitalie Spinu wrote:
>>>
>>>   > 2) new function 'ess-display-index' (bound to "i" in
>>>   > ess-help-map). It displays nicely linked index file put
>>>   > automatically in ess-help-mode with all the usual
>>>   > shortcuts available; p and n have modified behavior.
>>>
>>> Very cool!   ... though it takes a *long* time initially for me,
>>> as it indexes all the 2000 packages (or so) I have installed.
>>>
>> Yes, it's the R working down there.
>> Is it only the first time when it takes long?
>> I can cache package names if the number is higher than 200 or so.  I
>> expect most users have less than 100 packages and it's not necessary
>> to cache. Caching would imply that newly installed packages are not
>> recognized and thus not proposed in the completion.
>>
>
> Hi Vitalie:
>
> I don't think it's fair to assume that.  On UNIX and Linux, we typically
> load as many of the 3000+ packages as we can.  This serves 2 purposes. Due
> to privileges, it's simplest if the sysadmin installs them all. Also, it
> highlights critical bugs in the installation.  For example, there is a big
> bug for C++ R packages on Solaris when you are using the Studio
> C/C++/Fortran compilers.  We only recognized the scope of the problem
> because we attempted to install all R packages (if any one cares, there is a
> simple work around, but it's ugly; if you can make your C++ source into one
> file; then linking will succeed).
>
> Your idea of caching would be welcome.  Also, this would be an advantage of
> using ESS for help since there is no caching of the help with your browser.
>  Good idea!

Eons ago we used to do some caching of objects and information.  I
remember we removed it because computers became faster and larger
(around the time of the 1 Ghz pentiums :-)  But looks like between
expectations and size (and content) of packages, we'll need to cache
again...

best,
-tony

blindglobe at gmail.com
Muttenz, Switzerland.
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