[R-gui] Interfaces between GUIs and R

[Byron Ellis]

Hi folks, this is a question for all you GUI developers out there 
though, in particular, to those who work on SciViews and RKward (though 
anyone else is certainly welcome to chime in). Presently, my StatPaper 
app (which will have a website soon, I've just been busy this week) and 
AFAIK RKward employ a "kernel"-type interaction method (SciViews 
mentions a kernel, but I haven't been able to test it to see how it 
works) with R, that is R itself runs as a separate process and 
communication takes place over either the STDIN/STDOUT associated with 
the process or through some other means (say, UNIX sockets).  This 
works fine if we're just passing text back and forth, but when we want 
to start passing objects or graphics device information things start to 
do downhill pretty quickly.

My question: Is there any interest in developing a general kernel 
interaction protocol for R GUIs? This would most likely include the 
following:
	* Representation of data objects
	* Execution of R statements
	* Returning graphics of the kernel link
	* ???

Recently, I've been looking at the OpenMath protocol 
(http://www.openmath.org) for use in StatPaper and it seems fairly 
simple and robust. It bears a great deal of resemblance to the MathLink 
protocol employed by Mathematica. At the moment I think this entire 
thing could be done as an R package, possibly using the REventLoop 
mechanism for the server (though I don't know that it would be 
necessary) and also providing client access so that two R installations 
could communicate (I know that Rpvm and Rmpi already exist, though they 
have a somewhat different goal) in a standard fashion if desired.


Byron Ellis (bellis at hsph.harvard.edu)
"Oook" - The Librarian