[R-sig-teaching] text editor for teaching R

[G. Jay Kerns]

Dear Stuart,

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Greg Snow <Greg.Snow at imail.org> wrote:
> In windows, the simplest editor to use is the built in one in the R gui.  Just click on file, then New Script and it will open a blank editor (or use open script to read in a file).  This is a pretty basic editor, it does not do syntax highlighting, paren matching an several other things that are nice in Tinn-R, ESS/emacs and others.
>
> But one really nice thing is that you can highlight a section of code and just click a single button on the toolbar and the highlighted code will be copied to the command line and run.  Or without a selection, the same button will run the current line and advance to the next line (so clicking the button several times runs the next several lines of code).
>
> And you don't have to install anything besides R.
>
> Hope this helps,
>


I had to delete most of my reply because Greg Snow said it better than me.  :-)

I have also used Emacs/ESS for upper-division students; you didn't
mention the level of your classes.  If your students are introductory
and have grown up clicking buttons then it will be painful for them.
But Emacs/ESS is very stable, easy to install and setup via Vincent
Goulet,  has syntax highlighting, automatic spacing, code completion,
can handle R transcripts... the list goes on and on...

I would not recommend Emacs/ESS for freshmen who have mice for right
hands, but anything over the introductory level has been fine for me
(or even introductory if your students are sharp).

Good luck,
Jay





***************************************************
G. Jay Kerns, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Youngstown State University
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