RStudio projects capabilities

Question

I'm starting to use RStudio and I found the option of creating Projects, which enables you "to divide your work into multiple contexts, each with their own working directory, workspace, history, and source documents" according to rstudio.com.

Are projects only used for package development? If not, can you show me any other typical situation where the features written above would allow you things (besides version control) impossible (or more difficult) to do in a normal workspace?

Answer 1

Projects are convenient in several ways.

1. You have mentioned version control. Even if you work alone, it is useful, and it can also be used for text files, e.g. if you use markdown/knitr/Sweave combos (see Reproducible Research). I use Git with Dropbox to track my progress both for code and reports.

2. Each project has its own working directory. You can achieve that in bare R, but R studio manages this automatically.

3. The same goes for your workspace, each project has a separate one.

4. Source files you had open in re-loaded project will open automatically.

Basically, projects are useful if you have to work with, well, multiple projects. You switch between them quickly and you get the same workspace, working directory, which means loaded objects and history. As if you have never switched. It is not impossible to do this without projects, but it is much less convenient, which was your question.