Emacs Speaks Statistics
Emacs Speaks Statistics is an Emacs package for programming in statistical languages. It adds two types of modes to emacs:
- ESS modes for editing statistical languages like R, SAS and Julia; and
- inferior ESS modes for interacting with statistical processes like R and SAS.
With Emacs Speaks Statistics, the user can conveniently edit statistical language commands in one emacs buffer, and execute the code in a second. There are a number of advantages of doing data analysis using Emacs/ESS in this way, rather than interacting with R, S-PLUS or other software directly. First, as indicated above, ESS provides a convenient way of writing and executing code without frequently switching between programs. This also encourages the good practice of keeping a record of one's data analysis, equivalent to working from do-files in Stata. Third, since emacs is also an able editor of LaTeX files, it facilitates the integration of data analysis and written text with Sweave.