What good IDEs are there for R in Linux?
I've tried Rcmdr and Eclipse, but neither seems to have the same usability as Tinn-R in Windows. Are there any other options?
17 Answers
JGR isn't bad:
Most people I know rave about Emacs + ESS:
But it's not quite the same thing as Tinn-R.
Along different lines ...
If you're looking at a high level functions for data mining, then Rattle is an option:
and another high level app for interactive plotting:
I have found that the Emacs-ESS combination is well worth the learning curve. I enjoy being able to:
- have code and R console side by side
- send the current line, paragraph, file, or function to the R console without touching the mouse
- easily interact with R sessions on remote computers
- enjoy all the editing abilities of Emacs
Here's the website for the project: http://ess.r-project.org/
Here's a helpful document about ESS in particular: http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/Refs/ess.pdf
Although Eclipse was mentioned by the OP, I do not know if he ment it with the StatET plugin.
Eclipse with StatET is a really great IDE besides e.g. EmacsSpeaksStatistics (ESS), but as in other environments the user have to learn it's the basic usage first. The only handicap of this IDE could be the relatively high resources requirements as based on Java, but this makes the program OS independent of course.
Why I really would suggest to take the time to learn use StatET efficiently (cauction: very subjective list!):
- be able to run your code really fast and easily with comfigurable shortcuts (by Ctrl+r by default),
- thanks to the script editor and running environment is heavily integrated, debuging and reviewing your code cannot be easier,
- configurabled environments by default (e.g.: R scripts),
- you may define templates for frequent commands and those's environment (e.g.: loop, if conditions etc),
- highly customizable syntax highlight,
- TeXlipse integrated to view and edit tex code with ease (LaTeX support for Eclipse),
- Roxygen support for literate programming (very handy at package development to automatically generate Rd files (manuals) from inline comments),
- easily extendable with othet Eclipse plugins (e.g.: spell checking, (SQL) database management, image viewer, running external programs like Sweave).
A nice guide to read is A Guide to Eclipse and the R plug-in StatET by Longhow Lam.
I strongly recommend learning emacs+ess, but for a more modern-looking interface you can try RKward: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=Main_Page.
I use Geany in combination with R. Geany provides a terminal in which one can start an R session and shortcuts an be defined in order to send highlighted text to the terminal.
www.geany.org
This might be what you're looking for. It integrated Komodo and the SciViews package. I found it a bit too fiddley (I prefer vi) but if you're looking for a full blown IDE/editor for R in Linux it's pretty close to Tinn-R for Windows and it's written by the same guys!
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