Ever written a tutorial for R — or simply shared some R code with someone — and been told that your code doesn't work on their machine? There's now an easy way to solve that problem: Dev Containers. Dev Containers are a standardized container format designed for interactive use. You can set up a Dev Container with the specific version of R, R packages, and other software to guarantee that your R code will run on their machine just as it did on yours. Dev Containers are 100% open source and integrated with Visual Studio Code, which provides a convenient environment for running your R scripts and notebooks.
At the recent User!2022 conference, I gave a 20-minute presentation describing how Dev Containers work with R:
(Dev Containers also work with GitHub CodeSpaces, to create a cloud-based environment for running your R code in a single click. I demonstrated that at last week's RStudio::conf, and I'll post that video when it's available.)
If you'd like to set up a Dev Container for your own R project, the GitHub repository linked at the link below provides all the info you need.
GitHub (revodavid): Easy R Tutorials with Dev Containers