Emacs Speaks Statistics (ESS) is an

Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...

package for programming in statistical languages. It adds two types of modes to emacs: # ESS modes for editing statistical languages like R, SAS and

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g ...

; and # inferior ESS (iESS) modes for interacting with statistical processes like R and SAS. Modes of types (1) and (2) work seamlessly together. In addition, modes of type (1) provide the capability to submit a batch job for statistical packages like SAS, BUGS or JAGS when an interactive session is unwanted due to the potentially lengthy time required for the task to complete. With Emacs Speaks Statistics, the user can conveniently edit statistical language commands in one emacs buffer, and execute the code in a second. There are a number of advantages of doing data analysis using Emacs/ESS in this way, rather than interacting with R,

S-PLUS S-PLUS is a commercial implementation of the S programming language sold by TIBCO Software Inc. It features object-oriented programming capabilities and advanced analytical algorithms. Due to the increasing popularity of the open source S succ ...

or other software directly. First, as indicated above, ESS provides a convenient way of writing and executing code without frequently switching between programs. This also encourages the good practice of keeping a record of one's data analysis, equivalent to working from do-files in

Stata Stata (, , alternatively , occasionally stylized as STATA) is a general-purpose statistical software package developed by StataCorp for data manipulation, visualization, statistics, and automated reporting. It is used by researchers in many fie ...

. Third, since emacs is also an able editor of

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files, it facilitates the integration of data analysis and written text with

Sweave Sweave is a function in the statistical programming language R that enables integration of R code into LaTeX or LyX documents. The purpose is "to create dynamic reports, which can be updated automatically if data or analysis change". The data an ...

External links

ESS is freely available for download fro
the ESS website
which also contains documentation and links to a mailing list. Emacs modes Free R (programming language) software Free statistical software {{science-software-stub