[R] Emacs vs Eclipse vs Rcmdr

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 10:59 PM, Charlotte Maia <maiagx at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not so much interested in which is the best user interface for R.
> Rather which is the best ***platform*** for developing ***new*** user
> interfaces for R.
> Noting I'm using the term user interface is a very general sense.
> (i.e. Can include anything from console/pseudoterminal widgets, to
> text editors with customised syntax highlighting, to elaborate menus
> and dialog boxes).

> Here are my initial thoughts:
>
> Emacs Pros:
> - A lot of computer "experts" use it.
> - Plus some high profile R people are involved in the development of ESS.
> - High level of customisation.
>
> Emacs Cons:
> - Need to know Lisp.
> - Counter intuitive.
> - It's really ugly.
> - No decent widget set (which is probably why it's ugly).
>
> Eclipse Pros:
> - It's kind of fashionable and nice looking.
>
> Eclipse Cons:
> - Unnecessarily complicated.
> - Need to know SWT (and maybe XML too?).
> - The process for installing (and finding) add on packages, is terrible.
>
> Rcmdr Pros and Cons:
> - I haven't used it for a long time, so can't really comment.
> - However, I was surprised by how many reverse dependencies it has. So
> I will assume it has some potential.
>
> Other people's thoughts welcome...

 Python + Rpy +  Widget set of your choice (Qt or wx would be the front-runners)

Pros:
 cross-platform
 full, mature, and standard widget set
 easy integration between R and Python
 can integrate existing code for editing (e.g. Scintilla)

I'd say it was a medium-weight solution - you need R, Python, Rpy, and
PyQt/wx but they are all open source so you can distribute them with
your code or get your users to install them quite easily.

There appears to be an effort to make a direct interface to Qt from R:

http://qtinterfaces.r-forge.r-project.org/

but that seems to be in a very early stage, but would let you not need Python.

Barry