RJython? [was Re: [R-gui] [RGUI] Where do you start?]

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 09:59:46 +0000
david.whiting at ncl.ac.uk wrote:

> I'm more than a little late joining this thread, but ...
> 
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 12:32:01PM -0800, Duncan Lang wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > The tcltk package was put into the R distribution as a matter of
> > convenience rather than a formal decision to advocate or support the
> > use of Tcl/Tk as the main toolkit.  This bundling has given it a
> > status that was never discussed.  Iit does run on all of the primary
> > platforms which is very helpful.  However, it is an old toolkit that
> > is not used for any large application.  This is in contrast with Gtk,
> > Qt, Swing, which have richer widgets, more activity in development and
> > are the bases for numerous applications. Why the latter is important
> > is that we have been succesful in embedding R into other applications
> > and using and extending their GUIs.  
> 
> [...]
> 
> First some caveats: I have dabbled with Java (and felt totally
> intimidated by the code required to make a GUI using swing), and have
> dabbled even less with Python, am aware of RSpython and SJava, but know
> very little about their internal workings.
> 
> I have, however, recently had need to quickly create a GUI that
> integrates with an application written in Java. I found Jython, a Java
> implementation of Python.  This combines the scripting language
> capabilities of Python with the rich libraries of Java.  There are some
> neat tricks built into Jython that take away much of what intimidated me
> when looking at using swing directly.  Jython is a Java *implementation*
> of Python, so it *is* Python (the 'normal' python can be considered
> Cpython).  This means that Jython can run python scripts.  What Jython
> cannot do is use modules written in C - they would need to be migrated
> to Java.
> 
> I wonder if some combination of SJava and RSpython code, probably
> implemented in Java,  could provide a library that gives R users access
> to swing, via jython, from R.  

Please let's not pursue this as a GUI interface for R for replacing tcltk.
 We need something fast, light, and that does not use a huge amount of
memory.

Frank


---
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
                     Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University