[R] R GUI for Linux?

[Bo Peng]

> > > ESS looks very good but why should I load more than 30MB on the memory
> > > to work on a text file ? and why do I need to lear all the tricks and
> > > features of emacs just to edit a text file ?

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of linux applications like
emacs is that you can, if you know how to, customize it to your taste
so you do not have to 'learn all the tricks and features' of it. You
can use cua package if you are used to C-x,C-c,C-v and other windows
stuff. You can change keybindings of ESS if you do not like them.

The reason why I like ESS is that I can step through or run a piece of
R code easily. For my ESS installation, I have several ESS buttons on
the toolbar to start R, eval line and step, eval region and eval
function. I have also linked these functions to shortcuts F9,F10,F11
by defining
  (define-key ess-mode-map  (kbd "<f9>")  (quote ess-eval-line-and-step))
  (define-key ess-mode-map  (kbd "<f10>")  (quote ess-eval-region))
  (define-key ess-mode-map  (kbd "<f11>") (quote ess-eval-buffer))
in .emacs.

I do not see any reason why an embedded R session would occupy more
RAM than a standalone R session, other than the time/RAM emacs uses to
color the output. This can be a problem if the output is extremely
long so I usually clean the R-cmd buffer once a while.

Bo