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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 objects in source 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 but it's not 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 CRAN. I could 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 functionality my code 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 proposal, with 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 Journal of 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 function and send 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 what public 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 for me" to something we'd like others to see.
Duncan Murdoch
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-- Roger D. Peng http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~rpeng/
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