[Bioc-devel] Bulky installation and loading triggered by function import

[Luo Weijun]

My gage package imports a single function from pathview package. I just noticed that to install gage from scratch, users need to install pathview and all its dependencies, i.e. packages specified as both Imports and Depends in the pathview DESCRIPTION file. In the meantime, when gage is loaded all these packages are “loaded via a namespace (and not attached)”. Note all these pathview dependencies have nothing to do with the single imported function by gage.
I would think this is not a desirable to install and load the namespaces of all these packages. This makes the installation and use of a light weighted package much heavier than it should be. Are there any suggestions and thoughts on how we might address this issue? Thanks!
Weijun