factor out init.R and other R API stuff to R package

[maxheld83]

I love this project and would like to help, if I can. The stuff in init.R already seems pretty long.

Would it make sense to factor this out to a separate R package?

[renkun-ken]

Thanks for your suggestion!

As the session watcher implementation is still evolving quickly, we still need an easy way to ensure the client is using the latest compatible init script or it would simply stop working.

Currently, the easy way is to simply copy the right init.R from extension folder into ~/.vscode-R/init.R and client sources this script to make session watcher work.

It would certainly look cleaner if it is made an R package but its deployment would be not easy. vscode-R has to handle the package installation, or let user install it from github, and make sure the installed version is the latest version.

I would suggest we consider this when the session watcher api to VSCode is stable enough and if we find a good way to handle the installation and check.

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 365 days with no activity.

[ElianHugh]

I think this would be interesting to revisit given the maturity of the session watcher, the existence of r-universe, and the ability to check for missing packages (i.e. language server)

Edit:

It would also be nice to have the testthat infrastructure + CI. We've run into the issue of new VSCode-R versions failing to replace the old session watcher, leading to the requirement of fresh installs

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 365 days with no activity.