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

[Stuart Wagenius]

Oh yes. Very nice. Thank you for your help!

Stuart

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 3:22 PM, G. Jay Kerns <gkerns at ysu.edu> wrote:
> 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
> Youngstown, OH 44555-0002 USA
> Office: 1035 Cushwa Hall
> Phone: (330) 941-3310 Office (voice mail)
> -3302 Department
> -3170 FAX
> VoIP: gjkerns at ekiga.net
> E-mail: gkerns at ysu.edu
> http://people.ysu.edu/~gkerns/
>