Upcoming changes in lme4

On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 3:20 PM, ken knoblauch <ken.knoblauch at inserm.fr> wrote:

Douglas Bates <bates at ...> writes:

We (the lme4 authors) have mentioned on this list that we are
preparing a new version of lme4 that will provide enhanced
capabilities. ?That's the good news. ?The bad news is that the
internal representation of the model has been changed yet again. ?If
your use of the lme4 package is through the exported functions only
you should be okay. ?However, if you find problems then please report
them to us either in email <lme4-authors at ...> or on
the bug-tracker at R-forge,

snip for gmane >>>>>>>>

An alpha-test release will be made available on the R-forge archive
but *not* uploaded to CRAN. ?If you use lme4 extensively please test
this release by installing from the R-forge archive and telling us if
there are problems with your code. ?This way you can still back out to
the current release by removing the lme4 package and reinstalling from
CRAN. ?Once the new lme4 has been released to CRAN it will be much
more difficult to back out that installation.

Authors of packages that depend on lme4 will get a separate message
off-list about testing and suggested modifications.

Thanks for your cooperation. ?We do honestly believe that this change
will provide an improved capability for fitting and analyzing
mixed-effects models.

I echo the thanks and congratulations of the other members of the list.

Will the link functions for glmer be built-in as currently with lme4 or
will it be possible to provide customized links in R code as currently
with lme4a?

Both. ?Standard families (binomial, Gamma, gaussian, inverse.gaussian)

with typical links are evaluated in compiled code. ?If the family is
not available in compiled code then callbacks to the R functions in
the family are used.

We are quite interested in collaborating with you to ensure that your
families in the psyphy package that allow asymptotes on binomial
probabilities can be used.