Approaching Positron from RStudio (Mauro Lepore, Recast) | posit::conf(2025)
Approaching Positron from RStudio Speaker(s): Mauro Lepore Abstract: Many data science teams that traditionally worked with R and RStudio are now attracting developers with experience in Python and VS Code. Positron is a polyglot IDE supporting both R and Python and incorporating tools from both RStudio and VS Code. However, jumping straight from one familiar IDE to an unfamiliar one can be intimidating, slow down productivity, and impair adoption. In this talk, I’ll show some tools and techniques you can use in RStudio and VS Code to start your transition to Positron today—with minimal friction—while staying productive in your preferred IDE. posit::conf(2025) Subscribe to posit::conf updates: https://posit.co/about/subscription-management/
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Transcript#
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Today I would like to talk about the transition from RStudio to Positron and the ways in which you can make it less painful and more productive. This talk is particularly for you if you are curious about Positron or maybe you are already using it, but you still feel that RStudio is the place where you feel most comfortable.
The situation that led to this talk is that I've been using RStudio for a long time, pretty much exclusively, and I love it. But I've also heard great things about Positron, so I got curious, I wanted to try. One of the great things I've heard is that the design of Positron has been greatly inspired by RStudio, so definitely something that I wanted to try. And those similarities between the two ideas made me think that the transition could be super cool, cruisy, maybe similar to having driven a good old car for many years and then switching to a different car, but not so different so that the challenge couldn't be great.
Actually, what happened was a little bit more like a switch between an automatic car to a manual stick for the first time. A lot of the things that I used to do without thinking in RStudio suddenly started taking up a lot of effort. So certainly some frictions and pains. So it wasn't reflecting about those pains that I thought, well, the approach that I'm taking here is an approach that I've done many, many times before when I want to learn a new technology, I just dive in, push through the pain, and eventually you get used to it. But sometimes you cannot afford that. What if you are delivering a product next week or the week after and you just cannot afford slowing down?
So here I would like to propose the idea of taking a different approach where we start the transition in RStudio itself by tweaking our workflow a little bit in a few specific ways that will help you get used to what's coming next.
Three workflow tweaks
So here are my three tweaks, my three workflow tweaks that are working well for me, and maybe some of that works for you, too. First, use the commands palette. What is this? It's this text-based interface to running commands in RStudio. And this thing also exists in Positron and is the main way in which you are supposed to use the IDE. Why would you use this? Well, because that way you get used to running commands in a way that is not RStudio-specific. So instead of clicking on things, you just type a few keywords or a few keystrokes and you filter through the commands that are available to you and then hit enter and run them. And along the way, you will also discover the names of the commands that will be likely very similar in Positron 2.
Tweak number two, use the terminal more. What I mean with this is basically talk to your computer in the most direct and efficient way possible. The terminal is both in Positron and RStudio, but it's also everywhere else. Even if you are using a remote server without a graphical user interface, you will still have a terminal. So you can still do a lot of stuff, stay productive, and not depend on RStudio or any IDE.
And tweak number three, of course, use AI. Particularly, the AI tools that are agentic and they run from a CLI, from a command line interface, will allow you to get stuff done without an IDE, so you spend less time in the pain zone. In particular, I like Cloud Code and Gemini CLI precisely because of that. Wherever there is a terminal, there is this tool that will modify the source code on my behalf and not by being myself the one using the programming language, but indirectly through natural human language. So on top of being independent of an IDE, I'm gradually independent from programming language itself.
And using AI effectively is in itself a huge challenge and something that certainly I'm still learning. But I'm now in the feeling that it's something worth trying because if you do that well, then you don't need to sit on the driver's seat. And instead, it feels like having a driver that if you give them the right directions, will take you wherever you want to go. And that I think is super cool. Thank you.
instead, it feels like having a driver that if you give them the right directions, will take you wherever you want to go.
