[R-gui] R GUI question from new member

[Luca Manini]

Hi, 

I'm new to this list (and to the whole R world); I've started to read
some threads in the archives to get acquinted with the community but I
have some questions ready to be asked "now".  So please keep with me
even if the mail is not that short.


I'm a software developer and I've been asked to "write a GUI for R".
The customer(s) are (could be in the near future) some departments of
the local university where R is used both for teaching and research
(in various areas).  So the problem is always the same: users find CLI
difficult to learn/use and/or the time to learn them is greater than
the total available time (for introductory courses in statistics, for
example).

As I said, I don't know much of R but it clear that is a big
language/environment and that just thinking (let alone writing) a
"full GUI" for it is a major undertaking well beyond the time (and
money) budget I have at hand.

So, what I have in mind is, instead of using/customizing big GUIs, to
just write some small apps with a dedicated and minimal GUI for any
single and simple task (think for example of some students'
"exercises" on regression, or a series of computations or analysis or
drawing steps needed to complete a research paper).  

Of course I will not directly write them myself (sorry to say that)
but instead I have to check whether that approach is feasible and, if
it is, to "set up" the environment (docs, tools, examples, ...) so
that "junior programmers" (or smart users) can write the single apps
in a reasonable time.

I'm thinking about Python + GTK + Glade for the interface stuff with
some "glue" to get Python speak to R (and trap the answers).  Python
is my preferred language, it is easy to learn (and I'm happy to teach
it) and Glade is easy to use.

My biggest concern at the moment is to check that I'm not offering to
write something to solve an already solved problem and **for that**
I'm asking this list's help.

        TIA for any help/suggestion, Luca

PS: the second biggest is to check that my idea is feasible/reasonable
    (and for that I've already started experimenting).

-- 
    bye, Luca