I have been testing R-devel and really enjoying fast parallel
downloading of R packages, especially on mac/win where there is no
complication step either, it is super nice.
Perhaps the install.packages() messaging could still be improved a
bit. Right now if one installs a package on Windows/MacOS we see:
> install.packages('V8')
also installing the dependency ?Rcpp?
trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/Rcpp_1.0.14.tgz'
trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/V8_6.0.0.tgz'
The downloaded binary packages are in
/var/folders/46/wtyv3f9n7g1657wntpn0cl540000gn/T//RtmpMd0YSV/downloaded_packages
In the above output, there is no confirmation that the package
installation was successful. Instead we get a message that download
binary packages are to be found in a temporary directory, making it
seem as if the user has to do something with this? This is confusing.
Perhaps the messaging could be improved by not showing this tempir.
Instead install.packages() could end with a short success summary
like:
Successfully installed packages 'V8', 'Rcpp' in
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
Or we could not show any directory at all. But at least the user knows
installation has succeeded.
While we're at it, the phrasing "trying URL" is a bit odd, both words
are redundant in this context. Maybe it can just be replaced by
"Downloading"
These are silly details but I think they make a difference especially
to novice users.
Improving messaging on successful binary package installation
3 messages · Jeroen Ooms, Tomas Kalibera, Josiah Parry
On 1/29/25 15:27, Jeroen Ooms wrote:
I have been testing R-devel and really enjoying fast parallel downloading of R packages, especially on mac/win where there is no complication step either, it is super nice. Perhaps the install.packages() messaging could still be improved a bit. Right now if one installs a package on Windows/MacOS we see:
> install.packages('V8')
also installing the dependency ?Rcpp? trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/Rcpp_1.0.14.tgz' trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/V8_6.0.0.tgz' The downloaded binary packages are in /var/folders/46/wtyv3f9n7g1657wntpn0cl540000gn/T//RtmpMd0YSV/downloaded_packages In the above output, there is no confirmation that the package installation was successful. Instead we get a message that download binary packages are to be found in a temporary directory, making it seem as if the user has to do something with this? This is confusing.
You may have forgotten to mention above that the output also says: package 'V8' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked which means the installation was successful. Tomas
Perhaps the messaging could be improved by not showing this tempir.
Instead install.packages() could end with a short success summary
like:
Successfully installed packages 'V8', 'Rcpp' in
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
Or we could not show any directory at all. But at least the user knows
installation has succeeded.
While we're at it, the phrasing "trying URL" is a bit odd, both words
are redundant in this context. Maybe it can just be replaced by
"Downloading"
These are silly details but I think they make a difference especially
to novice users.
______________________________________________ R-devel at r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Other people may be like me where R is the first programming language I learned. It took probably ~5/6 years or more to learn what ?MD5? is and even longer to understand what a checksum is and why they?re useful. I think saying it _explicitly_ is helpful. Maybe saying that 1) the package was installed and 2) it was verified could be a nice balance On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 07:34 Tomas Kalibera <tomas.kalibera at gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/29/25 15:27, Jeroen Ooms wrote:
I have been testing R-devel and really enjoying fast parallel downloading of R packages, especially on mac/win where there is no complication step either, it is super nice. Perhaps the install.packages() messaging could still be improved a bit. Right now if one installs a package on Windows/MacOS we see:
> install.packages('V8')
also installing the dependency ?Rcpp? trying URL '
trying URL '
The downloaded binary packages are in
/var/folders/46/wtyv3f9n7g1657wntpn0cl540000gn/T//RtmpMd0YSV/downloaded_packages
In the above output, there is no confirmation that the package installation was successful. Instead we get a message that download binary packages are to be found in a temporary directory, making it seem as if the user has to do something with this? This is confusing.
You may have forgotten to mention above that the output also says: package 'V8' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked which means the installation was successful. Tomas
Perhaps the messaging could be improved by not showing this tempir. Instead install.packages() could end with a short success summary like: Successfully installed packages 'V8', 'Rcpp' in
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
Or we could not show any directory at all. But at least the user knows installation has succeeded. While we're at it, the phrasing "trying URL" is a bit odd, both words are redundant in this context. Maybe it can just be replaced by "Downloading" These are silly details but I think they make a difference especially to novice users.
______________________________________________ R-devel at r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
______________________________________________ R-devel at r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel