How not to be lost with VSCode when coming from RStudio? · StatnMap

[utterances-bot]

How not to be lost with VSCode when coming from RStudio? · StatnMap

A few days exploring VSCode possibilities after multiple years developing with RStudio

https://statnmap.com/2021-10-09-how-not-to-be-lost-with-vscode-when-coming-from-rstudio/

[statnmap]

This new blog post allows me to test comments with Utterances as presented in Maelle Salmon blog post there: https://masalmon.eu/2019/10/02/disqus/
This allows you to comment with a GitHub account as comments will be listed in an issue in my blog_tips GitHub repository: https://github.com/statnmap/blog_tips
Let's see if it works !

[rpodcast]

Thank you for this excellent post Sebastian! I've been actively using VS-Code in most of my open-source R development livestreams and you have some great gems here that I didn't realize (such as the path autocomplete plugin). While I haven't quite achieved as seamless of a debugging experience as in RStudio, I very much agree that VS-Code shines with my container-made dev environment and especially as I integrate R with python or custom javascript. The recent enhancements to R-markdown compilation have been huge for the extension and can't wait to see what the future holds.

[strengejacke]

Thanks for this great post! I recently switched from RStudio to VS Code. There was no special need, but after working with VS Code for ~2 weeks, I really feel comfortable and won't go back, even not for my casual daily R stuff.

I think some information is outdated, like code-autocompletion worked out-of-the-box for me (after installing the R extension), And I'd suggest the "Path Autocomplete" extension, which is said to work a bit more reliable. Exploring code of functions works with F12.

I have also saved some references/links to resources and settings, and some short guides how to use VS Code or do debugging here: https://gist.github.com/strengejacke/82e8d7b869bd9f961d12b4091c145b88

Though debugging packages does not work with breakpoints (for me), but with browser() instead, my experience is that debugging is more robust in VS Code than in RStudio.

[rpodcast]

instead, my experience is that debugging is more robust in VS Code than in RStudio.

I'm definitely interested in your debugging workflow in normal (non-package) projects. Could you share a bit more about your setup for debugging?

[strengejacke]

I haven't used the debugger in non-package projects yet, but I guess it would be easier because you can use breakpoints. That's fairly easy because you simply set a breakpoint and source the file, and it works. I think you only need to configure the launcher.

This is how I do this in projects. You may look at the video, but in the beginning of the video, configuring the launcher is a bit more complicated than described in my "tutorial": https://gist.github.com/strengejacke/82e8d7b869bd9f961d12b4091c145b88?permalink_comment_id=4259875#gistcomment-4259875