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R Tools for VS Plug-In Launches

It's at 1.0, with a version supporting Visual Studio 2017 to follow some time in May.

  • By Michael Domingo
  • 03/24/2017

Have you been following along with James McCaffrey's Data Science Lab? You're probably a fan of the R language. The folks who built R previewed a tool that allows for streamlining the coding of R apps using the Visual Studio IDE about a month ago.

Now that tool, R Tools for Visual Studio 2015, has officially made it to 1.0. A blog from Shahrokh Mortazavi, a program manager on the Visual Studio Cloud Platform Tools team, notes that a version of RTVS supporting the recently released VS 2017 will follow in a few months.

The R language, or more tersely, R, is an open source programming language that's strong on statistical analysis and graphics, so it's favored by developers who are looking to make themselves experts in data mining and data sciences. RTVS provides VS developers the capability to develop R-based analytics in the comfort of the VS IDE, with IntelliSense code auto-completion, familiar editing and debugging tools, Git and Github source code control, and the capability to tap into several VS-friendly languages and thousand of VS extensions.

RTVS is available via Mortazavi's blog, and besides McCaffrey's column, you can learn more about R at the following links:

Here are ten more links I've run across that might be useful to you, in no particular order and definitely not conforming to any particular theme:

benjamin perkins (MSDev Blogs): How to enable C# 7 in Visual Studio 2017

Gunnar Peipman – Programming Blog: Short introduction to serverless architecture

Fabulous adventures in coding: Excessive explanation, part twenty-two

The Register: Blinking cursor devours CPU cycles in Visual Studio Code editor

Willy's Reflections: What's up with us playing Kanban games in the garage?

mybroadband: What programmers love, dread, and want

Sara Ford's Blog: How to open files in a repo that doesn't contain a solution in Visual Studio 2015 – 075

Redmond Magazine: Microsoft Expands Outlook for Mac 2016 Add-Ins

ADTmag.com: JavaScript Dominates 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey

Redmond Channel Partner: How To Speak Microsoft, Vol. 2: Even More Acronyms You Need To Know

AWSInsider.net: AWS Nods to Node.js Developers

Know of an interesting link, or does your company have a new or updated product or service targeted at Visual Studio developers? Tell me about it at [email protected].

About the Author

Michael Domingo is a long-time software publishing veteran, having started up and managed several developer publications for the Clipper compiler, Microsoft Access, and Visual Basic. He's also managed IT pubs for 1105 Media, including Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine and Virtualization Review before landing his current gig as Visual Studio Magazine Editor in Chief. Besides his publishing life, he's a professional photographer, whose work can be found by Googling domingophoto.

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