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List:       r-sig-teaching
Subject:    Re: [R-sig-teaching] text editor for teaching R
From:       Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean () sciviews ! org>
Date:       2009-12-03 12:59:35
Message-ID: 4B17B637.1000908 () sciviews ! org
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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 <gkerns@ysu.edu> wrote:
> > Dear Stuart,
> > 
> > On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Greg Snow <Greg.Snow@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@ekiga.net
> > E-mail: gkerns@ysu.edu
> > http://people.ysu.edu/~gkerns/
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> R-sig-teaching@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
> 
> 

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