[Rcpp-devel] Rcpp advocacy question -- build environment

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Christian Gunning <xian at unm.edu> wrote:
> Advice for introducing students to Rcpp:
>
> I'm TAing for a statistical programming class next semester, and I'm
> talking to the instructor about including Rcpp examples -- sourceCpp()
> makes this very easy to sell!
>
> The question is build environment for folks with windows machines.
> Personally, I think it's a worthwhile experience installing linux in a
> VM and gaining the experience of working with a *nix machine (as I've
> said before here).  Boot-from-usb is a similar option I've seen
> successfully used for quick-and-easy Rinside build environment.
> Personally, I'm confident in troubleshooting any problems that might
> arise in these environments.
>
> I have little experience with Rtools and I stopped following windows
> years ago, so I'm a little worried about helping other folks with
> build issues here.  Is it worth the trouble to push for a *nix build
> environment, or is configuring R + Rcpp + Windows X now smooth enough
> that I should relax and not worry?
>

Rgui.bat, R.bat and Rcmd.bat in the batchfiles distribution
automatically locate R, Rtools and temporarily set all environment
variables and modify your path appropriately each time you call R so
the whole process is just install R, install Rtools, place Rgui.bat,
R.bat and Rcmd.bat anywhere on your path (or some subset of them if
you don't use them all)  The Windows PATH command will give you a list
of the directories you can use for putting these batch files in.  You
won't need to set any environment variables, you won;t need to change
your PATH, you won't need to reboot, etc.  These do require that you
let the R and Rtools installers set the appropriate registry values
since they get their info from there although there are workarounds if
you want a portable install from a USB.

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