Emacs vs RStudio

Overview

Emacs

Stacks1.3K

Followers1.2K

Votes322

RStudio

Stacks415

Followers455

Votes10

GitHub Stars4.9K

Forks1.1K

Emacs vs RStudio: What are the differences?

User Interface: One key difference between Emacs and RStudio is their user interface. Emacs has a more minimalistic and text-based user interface, with a command line at the bottom that allows users to interact with the editor using keyboard shortcuts. On the other hand, RStudio offers a more graphical user interface, with menus, buttons, and a file navigator that makes it easier for users to navigate and interact with the editor using both keyboard and mouse.
Customizability: Emacs is known for its high level of customizability. It allows users to modify and extend almost every aspect of the editor's functionality, including the appearance, keybindings, and behavior. RStudio, on the other hand, has a more limited level of customizability. While users can customize certain aspects of the editor, such as the theme and keybindings, they do not have the same level of flexibility and control as Emacs users.
Focused on Emacs Lisp: Emacs is built around the Emacs Lisp programming language, which is used for extending and customizing the editor. This means that Emacs users can not only customize the behavior of the editor, but they can also write and execute code within the editor itself. In contrast, RStudio is specifically designed for R programming and does not have the same built-in support for writing and executing code in other languages.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Features: RStudio is primarily an integrated development environment (IDE) for R programming. It provides a range of features specifically designed for R development, such as code completion, debugging tools, and integrated documentation. Emacs, on the other hand, is a more general-purpose text editor that can be customized and extended to support a wide range of programming languages but may not have the same level of specialized features for a specific programming language.
Package and Environment Management: RStudio has built-in support for managing R packages and environments. It provides a package manager that allows users to easily install, update, and remove R packages, as well as tools for managing different R environments and project directories. Emacs, on the other hand, requires users to rely on external tools and packages to manage packages and environments, and does not have the same level of built-in support.
Learning Curve: Due to its customizability and extensibility, Emacs has a steeper learning curve compared to RStudio. Emacs requires users to learn and understand Emacs Lisp in order to fully take advantage of its customization capabilities. RStudio, on the other hand, is designed to be more user-friendly and intuitive, making it easier for users, especially those familiar with the R programming language, to get started and be productive quickly.

In Summary, Emacs provides a highly customizable and extensible text editor with a minimalistic interface, while RStudio is a more specialized integrated development environment designed specifically for R programming with a graphical user interface and a range of built-in features.

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Detailed Comparison

Emacs	RStudio
GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.	An integrated development environment for R, with a console, syntax-highlighting editor that supports direct code execution. Publish and distribute data products across your organization. One button deployment of Shiny applications, R Markdown reports, Jupyter Notebooks, and more. Collections of R functions, data, and compiled code in a well-defined format. You can expand the types of analyses you do by adding packages.
Content-sensitive editing modes, including syntax coloring, for a variety of file types including plain text, source code, and HTML.;Complete built-in documentation, including a tutorial for new users.;Full Unicode support for nearly all human languages and their scripts.;Highly customizable, using Emacs Lisp code or a graphical interface.;A large number of extensions that add other functionality, including a project planner, mail and news reader, debugger interface, calendar, and more. Many of these extensions are distributed with GNU Emacs others are available separately.	Enhanced Security and Authentication; Administrative Tools; Metrics and Monitoring; Advanced Resource Management; Session Load Balancing; Team Productivity Enhancements; Priority Email Support.
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 4.9K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 1.1K
Stacks 1.3K	Stacks 415
Followers 1.2K	Followers 455
Votes 322	Votes 10
Pros & Cons
Pros 65 Vast array of extensions 44 Have all you can imagine 40 Everything i need in one place 39 Portability 32 Customer config Cons 4 So good and extensible, that one can get sidetracked 4 Hard to learn for beginners 1 Not default preinstalled in GNU/linux	Pros 3 Visual editor for R Markdown documents 2 In-line code execution using blocks 1 Can be themed 1 Latex support 1 Supports Rcpp, python and SQL
Integrations
No integrations available	Jenkins Docker Windows

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Python

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PHP

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Sublime Text

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Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

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Atom

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Vim

Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.

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Related Comparisons

Emacs vs RStudio: What are the differences?

User Interface: One key difference between Emacs and RStudio is their user interface. Emacs has a more minimalistic and text-based user interface, with a command line at the bottom that allows users to interact with the editor using keyboard shortcuts. On the other hand, RStudio offers a more graphical user interface, with menus, buttons, and a file navigator that makes it easier for users to navigate and interact with the editor using both keyboard and mouse.
Customizability: Emacs is known for its high level of customizability. It allows users to modify and extend almost every aspect of the editor's functionality, including the appearance, keybindings, and behavior. RStudio, on the other hand, has a more limited level of customizability. While users can customize certain aspects of the editor, such as the theme and keybindings, they do not have the same level of flexibility and control as Emacs users.
Focused on Emacs Lisp: Emacs is built around the Emacs Lisp programming language, which is used for extending and customizing the editor. This means that Emacs users can not only customize the behavior of the editor, but they can also write and execute code within the editor itself. In contrast, RStudio is specifically designed for R programming and does not have the same built-in support for writing and executing code in other languages.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Features: RStudio is primarily an integrated development environment (IDE) for R programming. It provides a range of features specifically designed for R development, such as code completion, debugging tools, and integrated documentation. Emacs, on the other hand, is a more general-purpose text editor that can be customized and extended to support a wide range of programming languages but may not have the same level of specialized features for a specific programming language.
Package and Environment Management: RStudio has built-in support for managing R packages and environments. It provides a package manager that allows users to easily install, update, and remove R packages, as well as tools for managing different R environments and project directories. Emacs, on the other hand, requires users to rely on external tools and packages to manage packages and environments, and does not have the same level of built-in support.
Learning Curve: Due to its customizability and extensibility, Emacs has a steeper learning curve compared to RStudio. Emacs requires users to learn and understand Emacs Lisp in order to fully take advantage of its customization capabilities. RStudio, on the other hand, is designed to be more user-friendly and intuitive, making it easier for users, especially those familiar with the R programming language, to get started and be productive quickly.

Emacs vs RStudio

Overview