Alex, Thank you for addressing the #1 issue with the 'maps' package. I have several clients and colleagues that I have pushed to use R for mapping but it's always embarrassing to say they have to either 1: accept Soviet Union era borders or 2: embrace the complexity of the 'sp' package.
Updating the world borders and (Oh please!) allowing countries to be identified by ISO-3166-1-alpha2 country codes would hugely improve the utility of the 'maps' package. Our efforts with the MazamaSpatialUtils <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/MazamaSpatialUtils> package originated with the outdated world map in the 'maps' package. Best Regards, Jon On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 10:48 AM, Alex Deckmyn <alex.deck...@meteo.be> wrote: > First of all, I would like to thank Ray for his many years of taking care > of maps, mapdata and mapproj, and for his confidence in my taking over. I > hope to keep the packages running smoothly. > > I think R-sig-Geo is the best place to discuss future developments and > will be posting there soon. As Ray mentioned, I (with his help & feedback) > have been preparing an updated world map. I am going to be very cautious, > but the many changes in country names (post-1990 Europe!) mean that any > package or code that uses maps by calling map('world',region=...) to create > a map using country names, could be affected. Maintainers of packages > calling "maps" may want to contact me to make sure I don't break anything. > In any case, I am currently testing a beta version that includes the old > data set as a fall back. > > Alex > > --- > Dr. Alex Deckmyn e-mail: alex.deck...@meteo.be > Royal Meteorological Institute http://www.meteo.be > Ringlaan 3, 1180 Ukkel, Belgium tel. (32)(2)3730646 > > > > I have been somewhat surprised by the number of positive responses to my > message. I have found a candidate for the position of maintainer of the > maps, mapdata and mapproj packages. I have confidence that Alex Deckmyn > <alex.deck...@meteo.be> will do at least as good a job as I have done in > this regard. > > The current (recent) releases of the packages still have my name as > maintainer, but the address specified points to my (now) old work > address which will autorespond to say I have now retired. However in > practise, I will still be able to read and respond to such emails for > the foreseeable future. > > Among other improvements, Alex is working on setting up a more accurate > "world" database for maps and will submit this once it has been fully > tested. > > Thanks everyone for your support. > Ray Brownrigg > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel > -- Jonathan Callahan, PhD Mazama Science 206-708-5028 mazamascience.com [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
