By Sharon Machlis, Executive Editor, Data & Analytics, Computerworld |

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The focus here is on data: from R tips to desktop tools to taking a hard look at data claims.

RStudio cloud service in the works?

An interesting result popped up when I searched for RStudio cloud this morning: RStudio.cloud from RStudio itself.

"Kick the tires to your hearts delight - but don't plan on taking a cross-country trip just yet," the service warns on its home page.

I logged in using my existing shinyapps.io account, which the home page advises to do. If you don't use shinyapps.io, you can set up a new account there, or use Google or GitHub credentials.

The opening screen lets you create a project:

RStudio.coud — Page to create a project at RStudio.cloud.

and then the familiar RStudio interface appears.

Happily, I was able to install packages, both from CRAN and GitHub. There's no git build in, at least not yet, but otherwise this appears to be pretty similar to my desktop version.

After installing some favorite packages, I ran a few tests. ggplot2 graphics worked fine -- I was even able to click the zoom button and pop out a new, larger window to view my graphics.

One thing of importance: At least as of now, this is a public platform, and any project you create here will be viewable by all other RStudio Cloud users.

Looks promising. I'll update this post if I hear any details from RStudio.

Sharon Machlis is Director of Editorial Data & Analytics at Foundry, where she works on data analysis and in-house editor tools in addition to writing. Her book Practical R for Mass Communication and Journalism was published by CRC Press. She was named Digital Analytics Association's 2021 Top (Data) Practitioner, winner of the 2023 Jesse H. Neal journalism award for best instructional content, 2014 Azbee national gold award for investigative reporting, and 2017 Azbee gold for how-to article, among other awards. You can find her on Mastodon at masto.machlis.com/@smach.

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