Is it permitted (tolerated? welcomed? discouraged?) to enhance and extend my package's vignette after the release? - Paul
[Bioc-devel] kosher to expand & improve vignette after release?
4 messages · Paul Shannon, Steve Lianoglou, Martin Morgan +1 more
Hi, On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Paul Shannon
<pshannon at systemsbiology.org> wrote:
Is it permitted (tolerated? welcomed? discouraged?) to enhance and extend my package's vignette after the release?
I know that if I were a user of your package, I'd very much *encourage* you to do so :-) -steve
Steve Lianoglou Graduate Student: Computational Systems Biology ?| Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center ?| Weill Medical College of Cornell University Contact Info: http://cbio.mskcc.org/~lianos/contact
On 04/13/2011 11:03 AM, Steve Lianoglou wrote:
Hi, On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Paul Shannon <pshannon at systemsbiology.org> wrote:
Is it permitted (tolerated? welcomed? discouraged?) to enhance and extend my package's vignette after the release?
I know that if I were a user of your package, I'd very much *encourage* you to do so :-)
Hi Paul -- changes to release are meant to be bug fix only, so if the vignette contains a bug then fixing it would be appropriate. In the more usual context of code, one reason is stability, for user and other package code that depends on the release. Another set of reasons involve simplicity for the developer, and the freedom that the devel branch provides for trying things out that you might end up being unsatisfied with. These seem to apply, though less convincingly, to the vignette as well -- e.g., the user expects to refer to the vignette and find the same thing from one week to the next (that little gem of wisdom that is now only one of an abundance), and those really clever ideas for conveying how the package can be used can turn out, after a few weeks' reflection, to be a little esoteric. So the answer is to reflect very carefully on changes introduced to the release branch, with the firm aim of correcting errors. Martin
-steve
Computational Biology Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 1100 Fairview Ave. N. PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109 Location: M1-B861 Telephone: 206 667-2793
I want to second Martin's comment. In my experience, working on enhancing the vignette is always useful, but it almost always points out some weaknesses in implementation that need to be fixed or improved. You really don't want to put those into release, but rather into devel where they get a bit of time to mature...
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 8:08 PM, Martin Morgan <mtmorgan at fhcrc.org> wrote:
On 04/13/2011 11:03 AM, Steve Lianoglou wrote:
Hi, On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Paul Shannon <pshannon at systemsbiology.org> ?wrote:
Is it permitted (tolerated? welcomed? discouraged?) to enhance and extend my package's vignette after the release?
I know that if I were a user of your package, I'd very much *encourage* you to do so :-)
Hi Paul -- changes to release are meant to be bug fix only, so if the vignette contains a bug then fixing it would be appropriate. In the more usual context of code, one reason is stability, for user and other package code that depends on the release. Another set of reasons involve simplicity for the developer, and the freedom that the devel branch provides for trying things out that you might end up being unsatisfied with. These seem to apply, though less convincingly, to the vignette as well -- e.g., the user expects to refer to the vignette and find the same thing from one week to the next (that little gem of wisdom that is now only one of an abundance), and those really clever ideas for conveying how the package can be used can turn out, after a few weeks' reflection, to be a little esoteric. So the answer is to reflect very carefully on changes introduced to the release branch, with the firm aim of correcting errors. Martin
-steve
-- Computational Biology Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 1100 Fairview Ave. N. PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109 Location: M1-B861 Telephone: 206 667-2793
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