Message-ID: <15ff321a-740d-7f7e-3d11-a197ed24ddd1@gmail.com>
Date: 2021-04-16T12:06:19Z
From: Duncan Murdoch
Subject: [R-pkg-devel] Problems with too much testing
In-Reply-To: <CAJmOi+MSZhvEaCRKgxCMYLp6syBcLW8KdAoxKPK+eFhm6Fkhiw@mail.gmail.com>
On 16/04/2021 7:54 a.m., Hugh Parsonage wrote:
> My 2c is that if a package has actually tested something like that
> (say, the ordering of a list's elements), then it is 100% likely that
> a script out there depends on that behaviour too.
I suspect this test is not intentional, and it really wouldn't make
sense for a package to depend on the order of named list components.
In other words, the
> change is not inconsequential. R users are in debt to package
> developers but I think it behoves us to take special care not to
> underestimate the work involved when a package's behaviour changes.
There's a difference between internal implementation changes and
external behaviour changes. For example, there are clear warnings not
to use un-exported functions (via :::), and a package that did that
would not be accepted on CRAN.
What I'm asking for are suggestions for ways to hide internal layouts of
objects from users. That seems a lot harder.
Duncan Murdoch