[R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions)
Hello useRs:
Does anyone have thoughts on the lifecycle of older releases of R? I
know that currently the 2.8.x and 2.9.x releases seem to be actively
supported on the mailing lists, but what about older releases, say
2.4.x? Curious to hear when people think older versions of R become
obsolete and unsupportable on the lists (or other venues).
Regards,
Brian
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Re: [R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions)
On Thu, 25 Jun 2009, Rowe, Brian Lee Yung (Portfolio Analytics) wrote: Does anyone have thoughts on the lifecycle of older releases of R? I know that currently the 2.8.x and 2.9.x releases seem to be actively supported on the mailing lists, but what about older releases, say 2.4.x? Curious to hear when people think older versions of R become obsolete and unsupportable on the lists (or other venues). Opinions vary, but: - reporting bugs (or asking if something is a bug) based on any older version of R than 2.9.x would likely get you flamed. - if your problem could be solved by updating to the current version, I think you would be expected to do so. My personal feeling is that you can just about get away with updating R only annually. Since you can easily keep an archive of previous versions available, there's no need to avoid updating on that account. Based just on R itself a longer update delay might be ok, but CRAN doesn't supply binaries of new or updated packages for old versions of R. Many packages will become seriously outdated much faster than base R. -thomas Thomas Lumley Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics tlum...@u.washington.eduUniversity of Washington, Seattle __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions)
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Rowe, Brian Lee Yung (Portfolio Analytics)b_r...@ml.com wrote: Hello useRs: Does anyone have thoughts on the lifecycle of older releases of R? I know that currently the 2.8.x and 2.9.x releases seem to be actively supported on the mailing lists, but what about older releases, say 2.4.x? Curious to hear when people think older versions of R become obsolete and unsupportable on the lists (or other venues). Regards, Brian This is actually a fairly common question from R users at commercial institutions, where for various reasons upgrading to the latest release of R isn't always possible. This might be for regulatory reasons (only a certain distribution of R has been validated), because of IT policies, of because R is incorporated into a production application where the risk of breaking the application outweighs the potential benefits of an upgrade. This is actually one of the main reasons why the release cycle for REvolution R isn't as frequent as that for CRAN R. The beneficial side effect is that we can therefore provide support for older versions of R in our distributions. We support R 2.7.2 through our distribution of REvolution R Enterprise, for example. More info here: http://www.revolution-computing.com/products/revolution-enterprise.php # David Smith -- David M Smith da...@revolution-computing.com Director of Community, REvolution Computing www.revolution-computing.com Tel: +1 (206) 577-4778 x3203 (San Francisco, USA) Check out our upcoming events schedule at www.revolution-computing.com/events __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions)
There is an archive for all packages for older versions of R, but if
you want up-to-date functionality of packages then you need the
newest versions.
my 2 cents
stephen
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Rowe, Brian Lee Yung (Portfolio
Analytics)b_r...@ml.com wrote:
Hello useRs:
Does anyone have thoughts on the lifecycle of older releases of R? I
know that currently the 2.8.x and 2.9.x releases seem to be actively
supported on the mailing lists, but what about older releases, say
2.4.x? Curious to hear when people think older versions of R become
obsolete and unsupportable on the lists (or other venues).
Regards,
Brian
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R-help@r-project.org mailing list
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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions)
Good to know. I know that other software projects (whether languages, OSes, applications) tend to keep recent versions in maintenance mode for a certain period of time prior to retiring them. I wonder if that would happen with R, either by design or out of necessity of an increasing user base. Brian -Original Message- From: Thomas Lumley [mailto:tlum...@u.washington.edu] Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:50 PM To: Rowe, Brian Lee Yung (Portfolio Analytics) Cc: r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions) On Thu, 25 Jun 2009, Rowe, Brian Lee Yung (Portfolio Analytics) wrote: Does anyone have thoughts on the lifecycle of older releases of R? I know that currently the 2.8.x and 2.9.x releases seem to be actively supported on the mailing lists, but what about older releases, say 2.4.x? Curious to hear when people think older versions of R become obsolete and unsupportable on the lists (or other venues). Opinions vary, but: - reporting bugs (or asking if something is a bug) based on any older version of R than 2.9.x would likely get you flamed. - if your problem could be solved by updating to the current version, I think you would be expected to do so. My personal feeling is that you can just about get away with updating R only annually. Since you can easily keep an archive of previous versions available, there's no need to avoid updating on that account. Based just on R itself a longer update delay might be ok, but CRAN doesn't supply binaries of new or updated packages for old versions of R. Many packages will become seriously outdated much faster than base R. -thomas Thomas Lumley Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics tlum...@u.washington.eduUniversity of Washington, Seattle -- This message w/attachments (message) may be privileged, confidential or proprietary, and if you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, do not use or share it and delete it. Unless specifically indicated, this message is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of any investment products or other financial product or service, an official confirmation of any transaction, or an official statement of Merrill Lynch. Subject to applicable law, Merrill Lynch may monitor, review and retain e-communications (EC) traveling through its networks/systems. The laws of the country of each sender/recipient may impact the handling of EC, and EC may be archived, supervised and produced in countries other than the country in which you are located. This message cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. References to Merrill Lynch are references to any company in the Merrill Lynch Co., Inc. group of companies, which are wholly-owned by Bank of America Corporation. Secu! rities and Insurance Products: * Are Not FDIC Insured * Are Not Bank Guaranteed * May Lose Value * Are Not a Bank Deposit * Are Not a Condition to Any Banking Service or Activity * Are Not Insured by Any Federal Government Agency. Attachments that are part of this E-communication may have additional important disclosures and disclaimers, which you should read. This message is subject to terms available at the following link: http://www.ml.com/e-communications_terms/. By messaging with Merrill Lynch you consent to the foregoing. -- __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] Software lifecycle for R releases (aka practical limits of support for older versions)
On Jun 25, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Rowe, Brian Lee Yung (Portfolio Analytics) wrote: Hello useRs: Does anyone have thoughts on the lifecycle of older releases of R? I know that currently the 2.8.x and 2.9.x releases seem to be actively supported on the mailing lists, but what about older releases, say 2.4.x? Curious to hear when people think older versions of R become obsolete and unsupportable on the lists (or other venues). Regards, Brian For a description of R's formal SDLC, read: http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf While that document is targeted to R users in the domain of regulated clinical trials, much of the content is relevant to other general use domains. From the perspective of getting community support on R-Help, if you are using version 2.4.0 and you post a version independent query to the list, you will get a helpful reply, especially if you don't include in the post that you are running version 2.4.0. However, it is possible that in the replies, there may be references to functions, function arguments or packages that are part of or are designed for newer versions of R. Upon reading that reply, you may end up scratching your head, wondering why you cannot find them in your version, which may prompt you to reply requesting clarification. That may lead you down the path to the next scenario... If you include in your post (or a follow up) that you are actually using version 2.4.0, you will get a series of rather curt recommendations to update to the current release version of R included in any responses to your query. However, if you post a query pertaining to what you perceive as a bug in 2.4.0 or a more recent version (possibly even 2.9.0 with 2.9.1 imminent), you will get a pretty rapid stream of replies, with a level of hostility (flaming) included. Those replies will tell you in no uncertain terms, that you better upgrade to the most recent version of R (which may include a patched version) before reporting bugs against versions that from a development standpoint, are no longer supported. You would be expected to check the most recent version that you can install to see if the behavior that you perceive as a bug is still present. The worst case scenario perhaps, in terms of being on the receiving end of flames, would be to actually submit a formal bug report on an older version of R, as that requires a **volunteer** member of R Core to have to stop what they are doing and spend time manually administering that report. Finally, a good reference to go along with this general discussion, is the Posting Guide, listed at the bottom of all e-mails coming from the list: http://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html HTH, Marc Schwartz __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
