[ESS] R in Cygwin Emacs

[Ross Boylan]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2014 at 03:48:49PM +0000, Sparapani, Rodney wrote:
> > If I don't set them in the above way, when running `M-x R', I'm blocked
> > with the message:
> > 
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> > Warning (emacs): None of 'w32-short-file-name, 'win32-short-file-name,
> > or 'mswindows-short-file-name are defined!
> > You will have to manually set   ess-program-files (in ess-custom.el) to
> > the correct "8.3"-style directory name.
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> > 
> > Best regards,
> >   Seb
> 
> Hi Seb:
> 
> That's a bug.  We haven't discussed Cygwin recently (mainly because
> Cygwin is not popular anymore; so sue me ;o)  Seriously, I can't
> imagine why anyone would want to use it today.

Well, I use it routinely, mostly for ssh.  But my emacs and R on
ms-windows are completely independent of cygwin.

>  Cygwin is a
> UNIX/Linux-like environment for Windows; I actually liked it.  But
> instead of doing it the hard way, I just installed Linux on my PC and
> cut out the middle man.  Of course, not everyone can do that.  But,
> there is also VirtualBox.

Installing cygwin on a locked down system is pretty easy (although in
Win 7 it does seem to require admin rights); I imagine a virtual
machine would raise far more issues.  Also, I'm not sure my hardware
is up to it.

I'm not saying you should make supporting cygwin a priority; I am
saying that rumors of its death may have been exaggerated.

Sample size = 1.

Ross Boylan