[ESS] UseR 2011 Tutorial on ESS?

[A.J. Rossini]

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Erik Iverson <eriki at ccbr.umn.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Rodney Sparapani wrote:
>>
>> On 10/18/10 09:21 AM, Rodney Sparapani wrote:
>>>
>>> On 10/18/10 04:22 AM, Stephen Eglen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> - should it be assumed that users have prior experience to Emacs?
>>>
>>> I would not assume that.
>>>
>>> Rodney
>>>
>>
>> Perhaps, I should elaborate.  On this list, we DO assume experience with
>> emacs.  However, in a Tutorial on ESS, you may attract users who have little
>> or no emacs experience.  Having made similar presentations myself over the
>> years, I have spent more time on emacs than ESS; and Tony's outline is no
>> different.  To get people to actually use ESS, you have to get them over the
>> hurdle of being very comfortable with emacs first.
>
> Agree with Rodney.  Also, for prospective attendees, many of those
> who know Emacs are going to be using ESS already, especially at an R
> conference.
>
> I've found that the way to get R users to use Emacs is to show them
> how easy and productive it is to use R within that environment.
>
>

Agree with Rodney and Erik - gotta get them used to some of the Emacs
quirks (quirks? they predate most personal computer keybindings...).

So, hit them hard in the first 15 minutes with why they should use it,
then have them suffer a bit, and bring some of the more compelling
features quickly.

I found that my audience was mixed between emacs enthusiasts (and ESS
experts) and those who were seriously on the evil side of the
text-editor opinions, who wanted to see the light.

It was a good deal of fun...  everyone, including myself, learned
something new (I had a feature that I implemented and forgot about,
pointed out in my face.  I'm getting senile).




-- 
best,
-tony

blindglobe at gmail.com
Muttenz, Switzerland.
"Commit early,commit often, and commit in a repository from which we
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