[ESS] BUGS mode

[John P. Burkett]

Rodney Sparapani wrote:

> There is no ESS menu for BUGS since there is not much sensible that you can
> do with BUGS interactively (technically, the capability is there, but who
> needs it?).  Although, CPU speeds have increased dramatically, my shortest
> BUGS runs are still around 10 minutes.  So, ESS[BUGS] has been implemented
> mostly from the batch perspective, therefore, no menu.  Looking forward to
> the day when my runs are only in the seconds and a menu would make sense 
> :o)
Thank you very much for explaining the matter of menus.

> As to what the problem is with Emacs, can't really help you there.  Don't
> use it.  And, I hear there may be issues with 22.1 as well.  Sorry.
The syntax highlighting problems I've noticed occur in .bug files but 
not in .R files.  Consider, for example, the following line:
  for (i in 1:n){
In a .R file, on my machine, "for" and "in" are in red and everything 
else is in white. That color scheme makes sense to me.  In a .bug file, 
on my machine, the same line looks odd:  "for (" is in blue;  "in 1" is 
in red; and everything else in in white.  In my opinion, the opening ( 
and closing ) should be in the same color.  Similarly, 1 and n should be 
in the same color, preferably one that contrasts with that used for "in".
As a second example, consider this line:
tau.y <- pow(sigma.y, -2)
In a .R file, the <- is blue and everything else is white.  Again, that 
makes sense to me.  In a .bug file, pow( is in blue and everything else 
is white.  Again, the contrasting colors for the opening ( and closing ) 
are a bit confusing.

I don't mean to bash Emacs, ESS, or BUGS.  They're wonderfully useful. I 
just wish I could put them together in a way that won't make my students 
ask awkward questions about the significance of colors that seem to have 
none.

Best regards,
John

-- 
John P. Burkett
Department of Economics
806 Chafee Hall, 10 Chafee Road
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
USA

phone (401) 874-9195