[R-SIG-Mac] Mac or Windows...?

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 11/10/2006 11:22 AM, Carlos GUERRA wrote:
> Dear friends,
> 
> I’m thinking about buying a MacBook Pro and I wanted to know if anyone can
> tell me what are the major changes, in “R”, between a Mac, and a Windows.

As others have said, R is pretty similar.  I'm mainly a Windows user, 
but I have an Intel MacBook, and I like R on it better than Windows in 
the following ways:

  - The editor in R is nicer, with syntax highlighting, syntax hints, etc.

  - If you can figure out how to get it going, the XCode debugger is a 
nicer source-level debugger for C code in R or R packages than what's 
available for gcc code in Windows.  (It feels like a professional 
debugger, such as you'd get with Microsoft or Borland software, but 
those don't support gcc.  Insight in Windows feels like a kludge.)

  - The console is smarter about offering you previously entered 
commands rather than previously entered lines, when you scroll up.

Things I don't like:

  - It's a major PITA to figure out how to get XCode working when you're 
not doing all your development within it.  I think there's a bigger GNU 
community in Windows development than in Mac development, so it's easier 
to get help.

  - The console scroll-back sometimes turns into cursor movement instead.

  - There are two incompatible graphics systems available, so packages 
like rgl only work half the time:  either as X11 packages, or as 
(Aqua/Carbon/whatever they call the nice looking graphics).  I'd love to 
know how to compile it so that it used whichever graphics was present at 
run-time, but so far that looks quite hard.

  - Subversion has better integration (TortoiseSVN) in Windows than on 
the Mac.  In fact, there isn't even a binary of version 1.4.x of 
Subversion available for download yet, two months after release.  But if 
you're set up for compiling R, compiling svn isn't a big deal, and if 
you're not set up for compiling R, you may have no need for Subversion, 
so this isn't much of a problem.

And some irritants that may or may not be relevant:

  - The Macbook case has a very sharp edge, which makes my hands quite 
sore if I rest them on it as I'm typing.  Old Macbook Pros don't have 
this problem; hopefully new ones won't either.

  - I know Windows tools better so I'm still more comfortable there.  I 
think there is no Mac equivalent of TortoiseSVN or Beyond Compare (a 
graphical diff utility, quite a bit better than what I've found for the 
Mac so far).

Duncan Murdoch
> 
> Thanks for all
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> Carlos GUERRA
> 
>  
> 
> Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo
> 
> Escola Superior Agrária de Ponte de Lima
> 
>  
> 
> Mosteiro de Refóios do Lima
> 
> 4990-706 Ponte de Lima
> 
> PORTUGAL
> 
>  
> 
> MAIL: carlosguerra at esa.ipvc.pt
> 
> TEL: +351 912 407 109
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
>  
> 
> 
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