Positron IDE doing Data Analysis with R (Public Beta)

[@osoriomatucurane9511]

This is absolutely Superb. Thank you for working us through some of the great feature of this awesome IDE. I hope it works well with Quartto.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

It works great with Quarto! There’s a bit of setup required prior to creating a Quarto document. See: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqSZhqF3p9B6asU

[@osoriomatucurane9511]

@@thecoatlessprofessor7674 Awesome, thank you Professor once again for sharing the resources and keeping us abreast with new developments making data analytics even more exciting.

[@Kiulianm1]

Thanks for this great tutorial. I like the layout of Positron IDE. I use Rstudio and most of my scripts are .rmd file. I have tried to run these scripts in Positron but always get an error. Does Positron support Rmarkdpwn files? If yes, how can I run all my code and get figures plotted as they are displayed in Rstudio? Note: I have the latest Positron and Quarto Extension is installed. You can recommend some tutorials too.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

R Markdown support for Quarto is a bit iffy at the moment. I should have a video or two in another week or so.

[@WhySoBroke]

Great video!! Is it possible to load GitHub Copilot in Positron?

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

It’s not possible to use a GitHub copilot extension due to MS licensing issues in Positron. If you have a Copilot subscription, the only way forward is to use {chattr} R package. Otherwise, you will need to stay in VS code or switch to an LLM that has an extension on OpenVSX.

[@oluwafemioyedele]

Great; please can you share the link for me to download positron ?

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

See video description for link to repository. I have two videos on the channel showing the download steps for macOS/Windows

[@oluwafemioyedele]

@@thecoatlessprofessor7674thanks, I have figured it out!

[@salvatoremangiafico5268]

Thanks. This was helpful. One thing I was absolutely missing is that, on Windows, ctrl-enter runs the line and sends the output to the console. Still a lot I don't understand about the functionality, but at least at this point I can _use_ it.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

Could you clarify a bit on the functionality remark? Is there a particular use case you are after or are you trying to understand where the editor would fall in your workflow?

[@salvatoremangiafico5268]

@@thecoatlessprofessor7674 Well, one thing I wonder about is running a chunk of code --- and getting the output in the console, or the plot displayed --- like you can do by highlighting a chunk and pressing the run button in RStudio. I guess for people who use this kind of IDE, that's not desirable ? Better to ctrl-enter ? ... And then basically everything with the debugger. I can't make heads or tails of how to use it.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

So, I think there's a lot of questions surrounding an analysis using Quarto instead of just an R script? Does that sound about right? In that case, I would say you still have the ability to run code cells by using Cmd/Ctrl+Enter for a single line, Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Enter or the "Run Cell" button for the entire cell. If you want to create in the R script file a similar "cell" appearance, you need to use `#+` instead of the python version of `# %%`. It's really good to develop keyboard muscle memory instead of using a point-and-click mouse as that takes additional time to complete a task, e.g. pressing a run button. Regarding the debugger, have you check out this video? kzbin.info/www/bejne/ppCXi4Zjo9OEaLM

[@salvatoremangiafico5268]

@@thecoatlessprofessor7674 Thanks. For my comments, no, nothing about Quarto. Just running a script. I still can't figure out how to run a chunk of the script. But more fundamentally, why this isn't a simple press of a button. Like, obviously, that's not how people use this software. Or they set cells or breakpoints or something if they want to do that. I just haven't quite figured the mentality of using this software. (I'm not familiar with VSCode, just RStudio and Spyder). ... I do think a few issues come down to things being in beta. Your debugging video was helpful. But, for example, trying to use Run and Debug; it tells me I don't have an R debugger; and then when I try to install from the options, it tells me it's not compatible with Positron. I take it this is just a beta issue, or I just have no idea what I'm doing. ... It's no biggy. None of this I need to figure out right away. Just trying to see if this kind of software will improve what I do, or if I'm just a RStudio and Spyder person.

[@econmaett]

Thank you so much for creating this video!

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

Glad it was helpful!

[@diegoitibere]

I couldn't find the "zoom" option in the plots? Is is still there in Positron or is is just in Rstudio?

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

There is no option yet in the Positron IDE for zooming on plots. You can only focus different windows. They are tracking it as a feature in: github.com/posit-dev/positron/issues/2270

[@Aaqib..]

Yes i am loving it so far, seemless experience with R and Python, i never liked working with Python in R studio, that was a mess for me tbh, Positron is a breeze. Quarto works fine too. So far i haven't encountered any issues, except that i am not able to move the panes around.😅😂

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

Mmm, what happens when you try to drag and drop different parts of the interface? Also, what happens when you click on the layout button in the upper right corner of Positron?

[@Aaqib..]

@@thecoatlessprofessor7674 i uninstalled and reinstalled on my newer machine, works fine, on the old one changing layout wasn't doing anything. Like i still would end up having the same layout. Now it is just the way i like it.🤝🏻

[@restrollar8548]

This should be good in the future, especially for R. But they need to enable remote ssh / dev containers! On their list, but not yet there.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

Yup, it's early days for the new IDE. If you already leaped to VS Code for more advanced features, this IDE is probably missing some features of your current workflow.

[@coopernik]

Prove me wrong but this is just vscode 😅

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

The Positron IDE is a _fork_ of the open source Visual Studio Code (OSS - Code). So, it should feel a lot like VS Code in certain areas. One huge benefit to this approach: Access to VS Code extensions published onto OpenVSX.

[@88fjoe]

With much better IDE experience for data workflows! VScode data analysis experience is a mess with chaotic interpreter manager, subpar dataframe viewer via 3rd party plug-ins and a missing variable viewer pane

[@VelkoKamenov]

Actually VS Code can be set in a very similar manner for Python with the Data Wrangler Extension for data frame viewing (it is official Microsoft Extension) and a variable pane is present when running code through an interactive jupyter window (it can be set in the settings when running a line of code to be automatically send to a jupyter window). However, in Positron it is great that all this functionality is available out of the box and also for R because in VS Code I never found a suitable R extension to work with.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

I agree it's really nice that a lot of the functionality is just _there_ without needing to setup the editor. Psst, the variable panel is still present in the panel bar when using a Jupyter notebook ;) Though, none of the variables will appear nor will the debugger/breakpoints work correctly in notebook view (so a slight downgrade from the current status quo in VS Code for Python).

[@oluwafemioyedele]

Great 🎉

[@richardbennett4365]

This thing is just a rehash of what we already have with Code, as this software is a fork of it, and marimo and jupyter.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

Not at all. The set up here is instantaneous and it's using a new high-performance R kernel and Language Server Protocol implementation called Ark that is licensed under the MIT License, c.f. github.com/posit-dev/ark

[@georgegl3192]

i see no need for this if you are a RStudio user.

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

It helps greatly with more advanced features to have the R session run separately from the IDE instead of inside it. You can quickly end up having RStudio run into a few hiccups.

[@anhc3440]

I'm relatively new to programming so pardon the basic question - I'm trying to run .rmd files in Positron (files created and run in VSCode & Rstudio just fine), but cannot. I'm seeing in Output a warning of "Warning: rPackageTask tasks are unavailable in the current environment." Edit to add Terminal output: rmarkdown::render(g:\\My Drive\\Graduate\\2024-SU-MGT6203\\3. MGT6203_Exams\\final.Rmd) Error: unexpected '\\' in "rmarkdown::render(g:\\" Execution halted * The terminal process "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -Command & 'C:\Program Files\R\R-4.4.1\bin\x64\R.exe' -e 'rmarkdown::render("g:\\My Drive\\Graduate\\2024-SU-MGT6203\\3. MGT6203_Exams\\final.Rmd")'" terminated with exit code: 1. * Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it." Googling has not produced solutions. Do you have any insights?

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

That's a bit odd. What happens when you try to use RStudio to render the same file? A couple of thoughts off the top of my head: 1. Do you have Quarto installed on your system? And are you using the latest version of Positron? quarto.org/docs/download/ 2. Can you move the document onto your Desktop? Off of `My Drive`? 3. Can you remove the space and period inside of the file path? e.g. `3. MGT6203_Exams` goes to `3_MGT6203_Exams`?

[@anhc3440]

@@thecoatlessprofessor7674 Thank you for your reply! 0. The same file is rendered normally in RStudio 1. I do not have Quarto installed - I figured RStudio, VSCode, and now Positron should be more than enough. Do I need Quarto to run Positron smoothly? 2. I tried to run the file after moving it to Desktop, same Warning in Output and error message in Terminal 3. I tried this, same issue

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

@@anhc3440 You need to ensure that Quarto is installed in order to render an Rmd document in Positron. Please make sure you have the latest version of Positron to have access to the Quarto Extension.

[@anhc3440]

​@@thecoatlessprofessor7674 installing Quarto was part of the solution! Thank you!! Order of events: installed Quarto - reran file UNSUCCESSFULLY - uninstalled/reinstalled everything - everything works now! Part of the issue prior was that the editor didn't even display the .rmd files properly - the whole file appears like a text file, none of the code lines were color coded, code chunks did not have "run cell/run above" buttons. After the reinstalling, everything appears properly and file renders successfully. Unsure why the first installation didn't run things properly, but alas, it's forever the mythical "turn it off and back on" phenomenon

[@anhc3440]

I apologize for jumping straight in with my problem! I want to say I appreciated your content! very clear and easy to follow!

[@richardbennett4365]

Posit-Ron by Posit. 😮😅🎉😊

[@thecoatlessprofessor7674]

Heh, nice!