| PackageDescription | Emacs mode for statistical programming and data analysis
"Emacs Speaks Statistics" (ESS) is an add-on package for emacs text
editors such as GNU Emacs and XEmacs. It is designed to support
editing of scripts and interaction with various statistical analysis
programs such as R, S-Plus, SAS, Stata and OpenBUGS/JAGS. Although
all users of these statistical analysis programs are welcome to apply
ESS, advanced users or professionals who regularly work with
text-based statistical analysis scripts, with various statistical
languages/programs, or with different operating systems might benefit
from it the most.
.
The rationale for developing ESS is that most statistical analysis
systems provide a more or less sophisticated graphical user interface
(GUI). However, their full power is only available using their
scripting language. Furthermore, complex statistical analysis
projects require a high degree of automation and documentation which
can only be handled by creating statistical analysis
scripts. Unfortunately, many statistics packages provide only weak
text editor functionality and show major differences between
them. Without a unified text editor user interface additional effort
is required from the user to cope with limited functionality and with
text editor differences.
.
Therefore, emacs editors and the ESS package provide the following
major features:
- Support for various operating systems
Examples: Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and MS Windows
- Working environment based on emacs
Examples: File Manager (Dired), File Transfer Client/Telnet Client
(Tramp), Multiple Clipboards (registers), Bookmarks, Abbreviations,
and many others
- Support for various statistical analysis languages
Examples: R, S-Plus, SAS, Stata and OpenBUGS/JAGS
Examples: Keybindings, Abbreviations, Syntax highlighting, Code
formatting, Commenting, Submitting scripts, Displaying results and
Searching documentation
.
ESS is freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
For further technical and legal information please refer to the ESS
Manual. |