> In particular, updating a package with many reverse dependencies is a > frustrating process, for everybody. As a maintainer with ~150 reverse > dependencies, I think not twice, but ten times if I really want to publish > a new version on CRAN.
It might be easier if more of those packages came with good test suites. Bill Dunlap TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com > -----Original Message----- > From: r-devel-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-devel-boun...@r-project.org] On > Behalf > Of Gábor Csárdi > Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 6:24 PM > To: r-devel > Subject: Re: [Rd] [RFC] A case for freezing CRAN > > Much of the discussion was about reproducibility so far. Let me emphasize > another point from Jeroen's proposal. > > This is hard to measure of course, but I think I can say that the existence > and the quality of CRAN and its packages contributed immensely to the > success of R and the success of people using R. Having one central, well > controlled and tested package repository is a huge advantage for the users. > (I know that there are other repositories, but they are either similarly > well controlled and specialized (BioC), or less used.) It would be great to > keep it like this. > > I also think that the current CRAN policy is not ideal for further growth. > In particular, updating a package with many reverse dependencies is a > frustrating process, for everybody. As a maintainer with ~150 reverse > dependencies, I think not twice, but ten times if I really want to publish > a new version on CRAN. I cannot speak for other maintainers of course, but > I have a feeling that I am not alone. > > Tying CRAN packages to R releases would help, because then I would not have > to worry about breaking packages in the stable version of CRAN, only in > CRAN-devel. > > Somebody mentioned that it is good not to do this because then users get > bug fixes and new features earlier. Well, in my case, the opposite it true. > As I am not updating, they actually get it (much) later. If it wasn't such > a hassle, I would definitely update more often, about once a month. Now my > goal is more like once a year. > > Again, I cannot speak for others, but I believe the current policy does not > help progress, and is not sustainable in the long run. It penalizes the > maintainers of "more important" (= many rev. dependencies, that is, which > probably also means many users) packages, and I fear they will slowly move > away from CRAN. I don't think this is what anybody in the R community would > want. > > Best, > Gabor > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
