Elegant loading of R packages

load_packages.r

# Setup Packages ---------------------------------------------------------------
# List of packages for session
.packages <- c("devtools", "dplyr", "ggplot2", "markdown")

# Install CRAN packages (if not already installed)
.inst <- .packages %in% installed.packages()
if(length(.packages[!.inst]) > 0) install.packages(.packages[!.inst])

# Load packages for session 
lapply(.packages, require, character.only=TRUE)
cat("\014")  # clear console

# TODO: support packages from GitHub
# install_github("cowsay", username="SChamberlain")