R devel - Oct 2005 - R interpreter in Java/R plugin or RCP for Eclipse

I've been enjoying R a lot and want to say thanks to all R developers for a
fantastic stat environment. 

I also am a fan of the Eclipse computing environment, which I've been using
for Java/C(++)/Python. I was researching for an Eclipse plugin for R and
found StatET (http://www.walware.de/goto/statet). That's when I thought
about writing another Eclipse plugin with tighter integration with R.
Essentially I want to write an R parser/interpreter in Java based on which I
can write an Eclipse plugin with advanced source code editor/interactive
debugger/object browser (say, with roughly the same functionalities as
JDT's). The interpreter would delegate all actual evaluations to C/Fortran
codes via the Java Native Interface, and would natively support new
libraries written in Java.

The potential benefits are:

- Leveraging state-of-the-art Eclipse features, such as frameworks to
develop advanced source editor and debugger.

- Largely complete environment for (future) R users with familiarity with
Eclipse but not with command-line environments (Emacs/Unix Shells). With a
LaTex plugin (http://sourceforge.net/projects/etex/), a grad student can
accomplish lots of tasks within Eclipse. 

- R library developers can for example use CDT (http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/)
for C/C++ or photran http://www.eclipse.org/photran/ within Eclipse.

- Encourage Java development for R.

- Make it easy to call R from Java programs and Java from R scripts.

I have been reading the R language definition document and studying R's C
source code. The first step is to isolate the source files responsible for
parsing R sources to internal data structures. I would appreciate any
comments/suggestions regarding this direction. Directness is a plus ("No,
that's a dumb idea" is fine, as long as a good explanation is
provided).

My hope is that as the Eclipse environment (especially  the Rich Client
Platform RCP and the Standard Widget Toolkit SWT) evolves, we can piggy-back
on it and develop a free R environment that can compete with S-Plus in the
GUI-oriented circles. 

Thanks in advance,
Vu Ha, PhD.
Information and Decision Technology
Honeywell Aerospace
3660 Technology Dr. 
Minneapolis, MN 55418
612-951-7114
http://cs.uwm.edu/~vu