[R] Best R text editors?

[Jim Lemon]

On 09/11/2009 05:15 PM, Patrick Connolly wrote:
> ...
> |>  and in previous versions, you could always do M-x cua-mode for
> |>  the same effect. Talk about a well-hidden function mostly directed
> |>  at beginners ...
>
> Perhaps the thinking was that by the time they find it, they'll
> already have noticed that they can cut/copy and paste using only the
> mouse buttons and won't be bothered with such inefficient methods.
>
> Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't. :-)
>
>
>    
Well, okay, let's look at it from the viewpoint of learning theory. We 
expect that if someone has learned a skill, they will prefer to engage 
in other behaviors where they can successfully use that skill. Upon this 
easily understood foundation rest the fortunes of many. Thus two of 
those entities, let us call them A and M for the purposes of discussion, 
spend a great deal of time and effort attempting to differentiate their 
interfaces from each other so that having trained their users, those 
users will be reluctant to switch to the competitor. However, they must 
remain similar enough so that the switch from the competitor is not 
impossible. Such is the dispiriting triumph of form over substance in 
interface design. Both have yet to abandon such atavists as myself who 
prefer to type rather than fiddle with a pointing device, though they 
try hard to convert us. A somewhat smaller organization that I will 
label G seems to have decided that it can build a user base by sticking 
to the arcane typoglyphics of the VT-100 era and enticing the largely 
amoral digirati with moral suasion. Now that's madness.

Jim