[R] RE:

[Duncan Temple Lang]

> Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> References: <32D408AE6657D311B1B700508B10900C0EEFFC at jcdusroexs2.ocdus.jnj.com>
> From: Peter Dalgaard BSA <p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk>
> Date: 09 Nov 1999 20:11:24 +0100
> Lines: 18
> Sender: owner-r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Precedence: bulk
> 
> "Morris, Jeffrey [OCDUS]" <JMORRIS6 at OCDUS.JNJ.COM> writes:
> 
> > Do you know what I really, really miss in R that I took fopr granted in
> > my XLisp-Stat programming days???  The ability to easily create menus
> > and dialog boxes.  I could write little applications and give them out to
> > clients.  It was wonderful.  It would at least allow each person to begin
> > to build one's own menu driven version.  Just a thought!!
> 
> Same thought seems to be dropping into several peoples head these
> days, along with the spreadsheet/dataeditor wishes. The basic problem
> is that these things need design or we'll likely paint ourselves into
> a corner... 
> 

(For some reason, mail on this I sent yesterday didn't actually
go out.)

Rather than committing to a particular design, we worked on a general
interface in S to X, Xt and numerous widget sets so that users could
write their own code. (It never actually got finished for a variety of
different reasons.) I think the general approach is the right way to
do things but potentially a lot of work and fixed to one or a few
platforms. 

A totally different way of doing this is to use Java which gets the
(almost) platform dependance. We can hook facilities for programming
in Java within R either by directly embedding Java in R and having a
.Java() function (and a .JavaConstructor). Alternatively, we can use
CORBA to connect a Java application and R functions and objects.

There are of course problems with either of these approaches
(i.e. requiring more software, etc.) but so do most approaches.

If anyone is actually serious about this, we can turn the .Java() code
out reasonably quickly. It sits on top of the Omegahat interpreter
which is in pretty solid shape for this purpose, at least.

D.

-- 
_______________________________________________________________

Duncan Temple Lang                duncan at research.bell-labs.com
Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies    office: (908)582-3217
700 Mountain Avenue, Room 2C-259  fax:    (908)582-3340
Murray Hill, NJ  07974-2070       
         http://cm.bell-labs.com/stat/duncan

      "Languages shape the way we think, and determine what 
       we can think about."        
                                      Benjamin Whorf
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