[R-gui] Re: R-SIG-GUI digest, Vol 1 #16 - 4 msgs

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

> My feeling is that there is an advantage in using the Tk interface
> already available in R since this will allow people familiar with the R
> language to develop front-ends to their functions within the R language
> _without_ the need to be able to write code in another language. Making
> this work well might require the development of a few custom Tk widgets
> that could be used for such things as the selection of operands and,
> possibly, some R/Tk templates that could be modified to suit specific
> functions.

The problem I see with this, is that this will be fine for the approach
"extend R to have a GUI", but is simply not useful for the approach "write a
GUI around R" (i.e. with R as a true backend). In fact, I think it would be a
good idea to develop these custom Tk widgets for R, you mention, but I'm
afraid, if we really want something useful across many different projects,
we'll have to use some more abstract standard.

Thomas