Jari Oksanen wrote: > On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 10:51 +0100, Simone Giannerini wrote: > >> [snip] (this is from pd = Peter Dalgaard) >> >>> Maybe, but given the way things have been working lately, it might be >>> better to emphasize >>> >>> (a) check the mailinglists >>> (b) try R-patched >>> (c) if in doubt, ask, rather than report as bug >>> >>> (Ideally, people would try the prerelease versions and problems like >>> this would be caught before the actual release, but it seems that they >>> prefer treating x.y.0 as a beta release...) >>> >>> >> I am sorry but I do not agree with point (b) for the very simple fact >> that the average Windows user do not know how to compile the source >> code and might not even want to learn how to do it. The point is that >> since (if I am correct) the great majority of R users go Windows you >> would miss an important part of potential bug reports by requiring >> point (b) whereas (a) and (c) would suffice IMHO. >> Maybe if there were Win binaries of the prerelease version available >> some time before the release you would get much more feedback but I am >> just guessing. >> > > First I must say that patched Windows binaries are available from CRAN > with one extra click -- Linux and poor MacOS users must use 'svn co' to > check out the patched version from the repository and compile from the > sources. The attribute "poor" for MacOS users was there because this is > a bigger step for Mac users than Linux users (who can easily get and > install all tools they need and tend to have a different kind of > mentality). > Actually, they can download
ftp://ftp.stat.math.ethz.ch/Software/R/R-patched.tar.bz2 They do have to build it (and know how to) though. (Fedora incorporated patches in their RPM updates for a while, which I was beginning to believe was a good idea, all things considered, but they haven't done it (yet?) for 2.6.0.) > Then I must say that I do not like this policy either. I think that is > fair to file a bug report against the latest release version in good > faith without being chastised and condemned. I know (like pd says above) > that some people really do treat x.y.0 as beta releases: a friend of > mine over here even refuses to install R x.x.0 versions just for this > reason (in fact, he's pd's mate, too, but perhaps pd can talk him over > to try x.x.0 versions). Filing a bug report against latest x.x.1 > shouldn't be too bad either. > Of course that strategy just means that .0 becomes the alpha release and .1 the beta.... > I guess the problem here is that R bug reports are linked to the Rd > mailing list, and reports on "alredy fixed" bugs really are irritating. > In more loosely connected bug reporting systems you simply could mark a > bug as a duplicate of #xxxx and mark it as resolved without generating > awfully lot of mail. Then it would be humanly possible to adopt a more > neutral way of answering to people who reported bugs in latest releases. > Probably that won't happen in the current environment. > Someone still needs to do that, manually. But yes, a new bug tracker has been on the wish list for a while. It is not entirely trivial to set one up, though. -- O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) FAX: (+45) 35327907 ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
