Rather off-topic, not really about R nor development at all, but I think the issue is vaguely relevant for potential package writers.
Mitch Skinner wrote: <snipped> > When there's a chance (however slim, in this case) that something I > write will end up getting used by someone else, I usually use my > personal email address and general identity, because I know it'll follow > me if I change jobs. The concern, of course, being that someone using > it will want to get in touch with me sometime in the far future. I > don't exactly have a tenured position. <snipped> I think refering to annoymous-mailers/personal contact addresses in professional work is unwise. I usually use the affiliation/context for which the work is done in codes/documentations, because: (1) in many contexts, your employer owns any result of "work for hire", so if you are paid to program on something, while you can put your names down, your employers are also entitled to erase all your claims of copyright or ownership on it. This sounds very hash, but that's how the reality is. (2) for most users, some reasonable expectation of *continual* support, by an organization, or at least more than 1 individual, is important. Using an anonymous or "consumer" mailer, doesn't give good impression about the _quality_ of the work, nor the _continuity_ of it. While you think it helps people to contact you *after* they have adopted your software, having an unprofessionally-looking addresses attached to it may deter people from *adopting* in the first place, so you lose before it even starts. (3) if somebody wants to contact you for a purpose that's important to them, they will find a way - e.g. look it up to see who might be in the same division or who might have been your boss, if e-mail bounces, askes the postmaster, etc, or brunt-force googling. What do you expect people will want to contact you for? I do recommend putting down your full name (including middle ones, if one have a fairly common surname and first name), but your work really should be associated with the context in which it is in, if you actually want them to be adopted by others. (4) lastly, there seems to be some wishful thinking between "...don't exactly have a tenured position..." and "...want to get in touch with me sometime in the far future...". Tenure is seldomly a result of "oh, I read-a-paper/use-a-software/whatever and it impresses me so much that I have to hunt down the person who did it, *whatever he is like*, *wherever he is*, *whatever he is doing*, and hire him to work for me...". I have been hunted down twice for work I did as far as I remember, after I moved on from the context. One did a google, the other got it from my ex-boss - the latter wanted some answers on details, which I provided, and I did get an extended "thank you", plus a "if you ever want a reference, I am willing to testify to the quality of your work" statement, which is nice, but cannot be taken literally nor seriously. I can just about imagine the conversation went further as "I know somebody who might be interested in your expertises, and I am willing to put your name forward, if you are interested". But that's *after* they obtain what they contacted you for. It is almost unthinkable that you get hunted down for a job offer based on some software/mailing-list-postings etc you do... HTL ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
