[R] GUI's for teaching

[Mark Myatt]

I just thought that I would add my tuppence on this ... what I would
really like for R is not a GUI in the sense of a point and click data
analysis system (R is too rich for anything like that too scratch the
surface) or interactive graphics (I like to script them) but a full
featured IDE with:

        1. A syntax highlighting editor

        2. Code completion features such as automatic insertion of
        function templates.

        3. An ability to submit a file of R commands and capture the
        output in an output window.

        4. Capturing of errors in code integrated with editor. Some from
        of debugging / error tracking / stack tracing would be nice.

        5. An object inspector showing the objects available in the
        working environment ... it would be nice (e.g.) to be able to
        click on a data.frame reference and see column names, classes,
        &c. And to be able to paste these into the editor.

        6. Basic project management functions.

        7. Help system and language guide integrated.

I suppose my view is that R is a language based product and that if any
effort is to go into the user-interface then it should support the
language.

I suppose if the IDE were extensible then it would be possible to add
user defined menus that could call R functions that used the tcltk
library for front-ends.

Just my tuppence.

Mark


--
Mark Myatt


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