[R-gui] Interfaces between GUIs and R

[Duncan Temple Lang]

As you know, I have been working on connecting many systems with R
(e.g. Perl, Python, Java, Octave, XLisp, S-Plus, ...), and have been
trying to get across that using strings across systems is quite
limiting for general computations.  Direct embedding, COM/CORBA, SOAP
or our own version of an XML format for Stat objects seems to be an
obvious collection of approaches.  Robert and I put together much of
an RSXMLObjects package which serializes and reads arbitrary S objects
(including language objects, etc.) using an XML format.  The
structures can be easily extended (in the XML sense) to support other
languages.

If the set of kernels is known and fixed, creating a new or
non-standard protocol is fine.  If people are likely to want to add
new kernels, they would then have to implement that protocol.  Using
something like CORBA/COM, SOAP or embedding would increase the chances
of that person being able to use existing facilities in that kernel.

 D.

Byron Ellis wrote:
> 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
> 
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-- 
_______________________________________________________________

Duncan Temple Lang                duncan at research.bell-labs.com
Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies    office: (908)582-3217
700 Mountain Avenue, Room 2C-259  fax:    (908)582-3340
Murray Hill, NJ  07974-2070       
         http://cm.bell-labs.com/stat/duncan