[Rd] Re: [R] A long digression on packages

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 5 June 2005 at 12:48, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
| Dirk Eddelbuettel has done a lot of work integrating the CRAN and other
| R package collections with the Debian GNU/Linux package management
| system. This rather neatly solves the non-CRAN dependency problems, at
| least for Debian.

Thanks for the kind mention but I'm afraid that is actually not quite
correct.  We do now have some 50 or so CRAN packages in Debian ... but that
does not solve the updating "problem".  I.e. if you install those Debian
packages, and then ask R to do update.packages() it has no notion of what
came from manual installation (and should get updated) and what came from
Debian and should get a new package via apt-get.  In Quantian, I use the
existing Debian package and then fill 'by hand' to get fairly complete
coverage.

Also, compared to CRAN, we're not providing that much coverage.  There is,
however, work going on behind the scenes to provide /most/ of CRAN via
auto-generated Debian packages, preferably in an apt-get'able archive. We're
not ready yet to lift the curtain.  But if there's someone out here in the
Debian and R intersection interested and willing to help (with some crude
Perl coding), let me/us know and we'll get you involved.

Regards, Dirk

-- 
Statistics: The (futile) attempt to offer certainty about uncertainty.
         -- Roger Koenker, 'Dictionary of Received Ideas of Statistics'