[Rd] orphaning CRAN packages

[(Ted Harding)]

On 09-Apr-05 Uwe Ligges wrote:
> (Ted Harding) wrote:
>> It would be serious if 'norm' were to lapse, since it is
>> part of the 'norm+cat+mix+pan' family, and people using any
>> of these are likely to have occasion to use the others.
>> 
>> I'd offer to try to clean up 'norm' myself if only I were
>> up-to-date on R itself (I'm waiting for 2.1.0 to come out,
>> which I understand is scheduled to happen soon, yes?).
> 
> Ted, that's great!
> 
> R-2.1.0 is scheduled to be released on April 18 (see 
> http://developer.r-project.org/).
> 
> It would be even better if you could try out the recent beta
> release of R-2.1.0 right now in order to spot some possible
> bugs before release.
> 
> So it is the perfect occasion to clean up "norm" on R-2.1.0 beta
> this weekend. ;-)

Well, I'll see what I can do ... though this weekend may not offer
a lot of free time!

Bearing in mind Martin's and Dirk's comments, going for 2.1.0-beta
right now seems unlikely to lead to any grief compared with waiting
for the final release. So at any rate I could start looking at it
over the next week sometime.

However, there's a question or two.

1. Simply for the sake of having a look at 'norm', I think
   this may depend only on things which are part of R-base,
   so I should not need to download any "recommended"
   packages. Or are there things in "recommended" which are
   likely to be presumed? (I've always taken such things for
   granted since they have been installed by default when I've
   installed from RPMs; I've not done a full R compilation
   before, at least not for several years).

2. Is there a way to get, off CRAN say, a listing of which
   packages are "recommended"?

   I suffer from slow connection (5min/MB if I'm lucky,
   and lucky to stay fully connected for more than an hour
   or two -- even R-base is going to take at least an hour),
   so I don't want to just connect and do
     tools/rsync-recommended
   as suggested on CRAN since this may silently drop into
   a black hole at some point.

   I'd sooner do it all piecemeal, knowing what's supposed
   to be on the way and able to start again at that point
   if there are problems. But this means knowing which are
   the recommended ones.

(This, by the way, is why I'd been waiting for 2.1.0, since
it then becomes worth while making an expedition to a fast
connection or negotiating with someone to do me a CD; but
with the above assurances I suppose I can go ahead now anyway!)

Best wishes,
Ted.


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Date: 09-Apr-05                                       Time: 16:16:35
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