CRAN policies
On 28.03.2012 16:30, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
2012/3/28 Uwe Ligges<ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de>:
On 27.03.2012 20:33, Jeffrey Ryan wrote:
Thanks Uwe for the clarification on what goes and what stays. Still fuzzy on the notion of "significant" though. Do you have an example or two for the list?
We have to look at those notes again and again in order to find if something important is noted, hence please always try to avoid all notes unless the effect is really intended! Consider the Note "No visible binding for global variable" We cannot know if your code intends to use such a global variable (which is undesirable in most cases), hence would let is pass if it seems to be sensible. Another Note such as "empty section" or "partial argument match" can quickly be fixed, hence just do it and don't waste our time. Best, Uwe Ligges
What is the point of notes vs warnings if you have to get rid of both of them? Furthermore, if there are notes that you don't have to get rid of its not fair that package developers should have to waste their time on things that are actually acceptable. Finally, it makes the whole system arbitrary since packages can be rejected based on undefined rules. Either divide notes into significant notes and ordinary notes and clearly label them as such in the output of R CMD check or else make the significant notes warnings so one can know in advance whether the package passes R CMD check or not.
I tried to make clear that we cannot decide that automatically and it needs human inspection and thinking if some Note is significant or not. That why we have not made them Warnings where we are sure things have to be fixed. Please always try to avoid all notes unless the effect is really intended! How hard can it be? If Notes could be completely ignored, they would not be Notes. Uwe