[Bioc-devel] R version in Bioc packages (was Re: [BioC] Package \'jmosaics\' not found)

[Steffen Neumann]

Hi,

On Tue, 2013-05-21 at 11:47 -0400, James W. MacDonald wrote:
> Not that I can recall. But I do agree that it is at minimum redundant 
> and probably just wrong to have R-version requirements for BioC packages.

I'd like to disagree. BioC *promises* that stuff works together 
at a certain point in time, simply because that stuff was green 
at the build farm at that time.

But what should keep me as a developer from promising 
that my stuff also works on older releases ? 
(For the fun of it, I once bisected R versions to find 
 a minimal R version for xcms ...). 

So why shouldn't I declare that xcms still runs on R-2.14.0 ? 
I can R CMD check it there, and if someone knows what he does, 
he can bypass biocLite() and install the latest from SVN manually. 

If I *know* xcms won't work reliably with R-2.13 and older,
then omitting "Depends: R (>= 2.14.0)" means that someone 
with an old cluster (which oftentimes receives fewer upgrades 
than your average laptop) with venerable R-2.10.0 fill fail 
*at some time* rather than on install time.

Just my 2c.

Yours,
Steffen

-- 
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