Hello,
You mention you want something simple, thus a lightweight text editor
with just the "submit to R" function (and perhaps, a little bit of
syntax highlighting). However, there are many more complex features that
one would appreciate when teaching R. There are, I think, three software
that were developed with teaching in mind, specifically: JGR + Deducer
(already mentioned), R Commander, and SciViews/Komodo Edit
(http://www.sciviews.org/SciViews-K). I can speak a little bit about the
later one.
- It runs the same way on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux,
- Of course, you have code submission + syntax highlighting (much richer
syntax highlighting than many other lightweight solutions, including
indication in red of wrong number formatting, or wrong escaped sequence
in strings), plus:
- A complete object explorer where you can drill in complex objects to
discover their content. Objects explorers are very important because
they help "visualize" what's in memory... often a difficult task for
students in sections where abstraction level is lower (psychology,
social sciences, biology, versus math, stat or physic, to cite just a few).
- A R reference toolbox that provides easy point&click access to pieces
of R code through a more familiar paradigm of dialog box (more familiar,
again, to some categories of students). This is important, I think, and
is also covered by both R commander and Deducer menus. However, in
SciViews/Komodo, new items are created easily by selecting a piece of R
code, right clicking, and choosing ("create snippet") in the contextual
menu (well, for creating the dialog box, you have to tag parts of that R
code with something looking like [[%ask:X:default value]], but really
much, much simpler than programming a plugin in R Commander and
Decducer. Example: a code for creating a dialog box asking for two
variables and a color and plotting a scatterplot would look like:
plot([[%ask:x:<x>]] [[%ask:y:<y>]], col = [[%ask:col:1]])
Select that code, right-click, "create snippet",... and you got a dialog
box prompting for x, y, and col.
- Many other nice features, like completion lists, function calltips,
contextual help and contextual search R help (place the cursor anywhere
on a word, and hit Shift-F1, or Ctrl-Shift-F1, and the corresponding R
help pops up), etc...
According to my experience in teaching to biologists, or biomed
students, those features are really much more than gadgets to help them
mastering R and statistical methods.
Final word: I admit that a simpler installer and complete documentation
of all these features are still lacking for SciViews... but it is
planned (no sorry, no date yet).
Best,
Philippe Grosjean
..............................................<°}))><........
) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( ( Prof. Philippe Grosjean
) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( ( Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
) ) ) ) ) Mons University, Belgium
( ( ( ( (
..............................................................
Stuart Wagenius wrote:
Oh yes. Very nice. Thank you for your help!
Stuart
On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 3:22 PM, G. Jay Kerns <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Stuart,
On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Greg Snow <[email protected]> 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: [email protected]
E-mail: [email protected]
http://people.ysu.edu/~gkerns/
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