Hi All,
This has been an very interesting discussion!
Advise: excuse me, my English is not very good, but I woul like to participate
with same considerations.
1: Tim said:
I don't think a fancy GUI is necessary... I get the impression that the
real power of R is the fact that really it's a programming language,
and should probably be treated and learned as such.
I would like to agree with Tim and I think the user
(novice or experienced) needs basically the resources of three
or four basic R GUI projects:
a) A good and simple, in principle, GUI (like SciViews and JGR)
b) A good and simple, in principle, and basic tool to learn easily to write
S&R scripts (like Rcmdr), now intergrated with SciViews.
c) A good and simple, in principle, scripts editor (like WinEdit and Tinn-R).
Tinn-R is now integrate with SciViews.
PS: I don't work with Emacs + ESS and I think isn't adequate for the novice,
definitively, not.
So, SciViews is a good, in principle, GUI for R. The major problem, is to make
it available in all plataforms suported for the R.
I think that the R user, necessarily, must have disposition to learn
S and R languages: The power and flexibility is there!!!
The GUI will help the user in this intention.
2: Ted said:
One genuine benefit that the GUI offers, especially to
beginners with a particular software package, is that the
resources of the software can perhaps more easily and rapidly
be explored through the GUI, rather than searching laboriously
through the documentation of functions, extra packages, and
so on. This means that they more readily come to perceive
what is available though of course this is limited to what
the GUI will show them. But a good "Help" window can break
that barrier.
Very good!
This, though, still fails for information in packages which
you have not installed.
Idem!
3: Jonathan Baron said:
This is one of the purpose of my R search page. I have all
packages installed. You can also search the help list, etc., in
the same search. Some people have bookmarks for it. Of course
you need to be connected to the internet.
Thanks for your page Jon: very useful!
4: Philippe said:
May be, I am just a "DREAMER", but all I read in this discussion reinforce my
conviction that an **innovative** GUI would be a good addition to R...
For sure, the alternate GUI will only support you in writing R code, and
will deliver plenty of help to achieve this goal.
I Think that Philippe is correct.
Perhaps Free Pascal and Lazarus (IDE for the Free Pascal) can be considered as
an alternative to make an OS independent R GUI.
Lazarus (http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/) is the class libraries for
Free Pascal that emulate Delphi.
Free Pascal is a GPL'ed compiler that runs on Linux, Win32, OS/2, 68K and more.
Free Pascal is designed to be able to understand and compile Delphi syntax.
Best regards,
Jos? Cl?udio Faria - Prof. Adjunto/Estat?stica
UESC/DCET
Brasil
73-634.2779
joseclaudio.faria@terra.com.br
jc_faria@uesc.br
jc_faria@uol.com.br