migration from emacs (ess/magit)

[r2evans]

I am a long time user of emacs and ESS. I believe some of Posit's staff have been known to use it as well, though allegedly last year they (LH ;-) told a room at posit::conf that he had converted, reducing our ranks by one :-(

I am considering whether I can migrate from using emacs (ess and magit) to Positron. I know that much of the functionality I need is perfectly fine. What I'm most interested about is if anybody else as started or tried the journey, and what their growing pains have been.

(As I'm previewing this before committing, some of this may be my mis-understanding of RStudio and Positron. I've gone through some Getting Started guides and haven't found what I'm seeking, I apologize in advance obvious oversights.)

For instance:

• Keymap. I suspect that Positron's keymap can be heavily customized to approximate some/most of what I need, but I admit that when somebody asks me how to "do something" in emacs, I have to "do it" and watch my fingers: they know what to do, the brain does not. I don't know if it's better to retrain my brain (many hours of work, certainly) or relearn a new set.
  • I know there are 2-key chords in Positron, any experience with extensions that support 3-key chords?
  • Have you found keypress actions (functions) that are supported in emacs/ess that cannot be controlled in Positron?
  • (Does anybody have a config/json/... file that has many/most emacs-like keybindings pre-configured for vscode/positron? AKA "easy button" for me :-)
• Multiple Graphic Devices. It's not uncommon for my dev.list() to have 2-3 simultaneous plots that I switch between. In Positron, I can move an existing plot in a separate window/tab, but at that point it's a static image not a graphics device I can reuse, dev.list() is still length 1. (I might be alone in this desire, and perhaps I can warp httpgd to do what I need without hanging R.)
• Multiple Simo (R) Interpreters. I often have 3 or more unique R sessions running in emacs at once; sometimes because I'm actively working on multiple projects and choose to not restart R interpreters or share the working environment; sometimes it's because two or more are doing simultaneous/continuous things (live data support) that I do not want to try to combine into one R process. I know I can switch interpreters in Positron fairly easily, and I've seen hints that others can do multiple simultaneous processes, but my R session does not show the + on the console pane allowing me to start another R process. (Perhaps this is a bug?)
• Source Control (and, indirectly, Projects). RStudio and I think Positron tend to be focused on a "project" being directory-focused, but my current focus/project is linked to an R session: and I open files in various other directories and different git repos to support an effort in each R session. I use magit for source control, and I can freely switch directories to another git repo, stage/stash/commit, without any effect on the running R process. I am reading more about VSCode's support for git repos, I would appreciate pointers for how to work outside of the presumed directory-centric workflow.
• In case I'm missing something, what emacs/ess feature have you found missing or different in Positron?

I'm hopeful that I can find compatibility and perhaps synergy with my own processes, habit patterns, and muscle memory.

[lionel-]

Hi, nice to see you here!

I know there are 2-key chords in Positron, any experience with extensions that support 3-key chords?

I use quite a few 3-key chords as a vscodevim user. Looks like they should work fine with regular keybindings as well, example at microsoft/vscode#6966 (comment)

The biggest mindshift for me in terms of control of the IDE was to realise I had to give up the level of scriptability of Emacs. On the plus side, this means my life is now simpler. Note that you can still do quite a lot with commands (combined with runCommands), tasks, or with a custom personal extension (which is heavier than scripting from your config file but a one time setup). There are also extensions that help making setup easier such as https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hoovercj.vscode-settings-cycler.

Multiple Simo (R) Interpreters.

Multiple sessions support is coming very soon in the next release!

Multiple Graphic Devices.

In principle we could add an "Activate" button to a plot to make it the current active device on the R side. I'm not sure this feature would get much use though. But it's interesting to think about.

Source Control (and, indirectly, Projects). RStudio and I think Positron tend to be focused on a "project" being directory-focused,

Another mindshift I did was to rely more on CLI tooling that works the same across IDEs. I use Positron for R packages but Zed with other languages. It's nice to find the same tools everywhere. For file management I use yazi (invoked from a task), for project management I have a custom script that wraps around fzf, and for git I use lazygit. You can invoke lazygit in a terminal from any folder (maybe look into z / zoxyde for moving around folders in your shell). And to use lazygit for the currently opened project this works great: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ChaitanyaShahare.lazygit.

[r2evans]

Thanks for the feedback, @lionel- !

In principle we could add an "Activate" button to a plot to make it the current active device on the R side. I'm not sure this feature would get much use though. But it's interesting to think about.

I've always wondered why nobody else has been requesting it, tbh. I understand that my habits and workflow drive me to perhaps unconventional uses such as multiple plots, but ... what other IDEs (other than Rgui and emacs/ess) make it easy to use multiple plots? Is it not requested because it is not needed or because it is usually "too difficult" to get to work in many/most popular IDEs? (My transition to macos and its xquartz is complicating this, as xquartz is just ... not good.) I do confess that explicit management of device numbers is easy to get wrong, but I don't think that should be a show-stopper.

I'd envisioning something like this would be intuitive and not too difficult to support:

(Where "Open in new window" would retain the dynamic canvas and functionality present in this view, I think that is also a big lift.)

Another mindshift I did was to rely more on CLI tooling that works the same across IDEs.

I have not had non-emacs editor experience since ... joe, tbh, that might date me a bit.

Thank you for sharing components you're using to replace some of the built-in functionality of emacs! I hadn't heard of yazi or fzf, they look interesting. I'm mostly comfortable with git cli, though I am inexperienced with partial-file staging (git add --patch <filename>), which I find quite comfortable in emacs/magit; I'll check out lazygit, though I might just find I keep emacs around for things like this.

Personal note: I'd be interested to talk with you about ESS, perhaps offline. Nothing cosmic, but GH issues and Positron discussion channels do not seem the best places, any chance I can reach out to you via email or other? I don't want to hijack your time or overstay my welcome.

[lionel-]

yep feel free to reach out via one of the email addresses I use for commits