[R] GUI's for R

[Gerald.Jean@spgdag.ca]

Hello,

I am not currently using R but I have been using S+ for sevaral years.  I
think that I fit in the category of power users, never using the GUI
prefering the flexibility of a command line interface (CLI).  In a short
while I will try to move to R, that is if we can convince our IT people
that installing a freeware package on a Unix server will not damaged the
companie's network!  The main reasons for which I want to move to R, at
least give it a try, are 1) David Smith of Insightful annonced us a couple
months ago that there is not plan to further develop the 6.0.4 Release 1
for Sun SPARC, SunOS 5.8, 64-bit version of S+ and as we deal with very
large problems, addressing well over 4GB of memory, a 64 bit version is
required and we bought that Sun machine for this sole purpose. 2) From what
I read and heard R manages its memory a little better than S+ and is a
little faster, non negligeable aspects when dealing with large problems.

All I said so far has little to do with the title of this email.  I am
getting to it.  While I am pretty happy with a CLI I was asked to evaluate
a few statistical packages to be used by casual users in my group.  One of
the main requirements is ease of use, hence the GUI, furthermore, it will
be a lot easier for me to support them in their analyses if we use the same
software.

I spent the two last days reading the R-FAQ and searching the R groups mail
archives, including the R-GUI mail group and as a consequence of all this
reading I am a bit confused.  At first I gathered that there was no GUI for
R, that R was strickly a CLI language.  What brought me to that conclusion
is the fact that on the R-project pages they refer the readers to external
builders of GUIs like the R-Commander of John Fox, Brodgar, TeXmacs,
SciViews etc..  On the other hand searching the mail archives for the word
"R-GUI" yielded well over 500 hits.  After reading a few tens of those I
realized that there existed, after building R, an executable called
"Rgui.exe", what is that? is that a GUI version of R or not? can someone
set my bearings straight on that issue?

Thanks in advance for your valuable comments,

Gérald Jean
Analyste-conseil (statistiques), Actuariat
télephone            : (418) 835-4900 poste (7639)
télecopieur          : (418) 835-6657
courrier électronique: gerald.jean at spgdag.ca

"In God we trust all others must bring data"  W. Edwards Deming