-----Original Message-----
From: r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch]On Behalf Of Roger D. Peng
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 11:35 PM
To: Duncan Murdoch
Cc: Patrick Connolly; Barry Rowlingson; r-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [Rd] Packages of snippets?
Duncan, I very much like your idea of a RNews/JSS "package" which
would contain code snippets from different contributors. In
fact, I would be willing to maintain such a package if it came
into existence. One note (I'm not sure if this is a flaw,
strictly speaking), the package would only be able to cover
functions. So general "tips", for example those covered on the
Rtips webpage (http://www.ku.edu/~pauljohn/R/Rtips.html), would
not be able to make their way into the package.
Another issue is that as of now, there are many useful tools for
checking for errors/problems in *packages*. But there's no real
way to check a single code file and a documentation file (say, an
.Rd file). One possibility might be to force contributors to
submit something like a DESCRIPTION file for their function (with
the necessary contact information), along with the code and a man
page. Then there would be anough material to make a fake package
on which to run R CMD check.
-roger
Duncan Murdoch wrote:
[Moved from r-help to r-devel]
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:29:12 +1200, Patrick Connolly
<p.connolly@hortresearch.co.nz> wrote:
I made myself a function in the S-PLUS days which I've modified to
work in R. It involved adding another few functions to add dates to
objects.
This isn't something I'd use, since I prefer to keep
form, but I bet there are quite a few people who would use it if it
were generally available.
I've toyed with the idea of adding an object size column
important enough for my use. Since I revisit projects over a period
of years at times, the date is very useful information -- in fact,
it's the main reason why I wrote it.
My code is not elegant enough for an esteemed place on
make it a lot better myself if I spent the time on it, but it works
well enough for me as it is, so in that sense, it ain't broke.
However, if anyone is interested in having such
could be a good starting point.
Inelegance is no excuse! However, I do understand the feeling of
writing a nice little function, and not knowing exactly what to do
with it: CRAN is crowded, and it does seem that an entire package
just to support one or two simple functions is a bit of overkill.
Can we work out a way to publish such things? Here's a
some serious flaws listed below. Can someone fix them?
- It should be easy to publish a short article describing your nice
little function, and making the code available to others. (I think
this is already in place, either by publishing in RNews or
Statistical Software, as a code snippet.)
- It should be easy for users to get it, together with man pages,
etc. This is not in place, unless you package your
it to CRAN. What I'd propose is that a volunteer should act as an
editor of an "RNews" or "JSS" package, that contains *all* of the
snippets that have been published in RNews or JSS.
Some major flaws in this proposal are:
- It needs a volunteer editor.
- The editor would have to be organized, and willing to bug authors
for updates whenever R changes and breaks their snippet (or makes it
obsolete). If there's no one willing to do this, the editor should
feel free to drop the snippet from the package.
- There'd have to be a way for someone to see which snippets don't
have maintainers so have been dropped, but could be resurrected.
- If it's successful, there'll be name clashes. The editor should
try to head these off from the start, by setting some rules for what
kinds of names should be used for internal functions, and
names should look like.
- There aren't actually that many snippets being published, because
it's hard work to convert something that works "well enough
something we'd like others to see.
Duncan Murdoch