[Rd] Suggestion: help(<package name>)

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On 6/7/05, Henrik Bengtsson <hb at maths.lth.se> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to suggest a standard where all packages provide an Rd page
> with the same name (or aliased) as the name of package so that
> help(<package name>) or ?<package name> is always here. This especially
> of interest to large packages with a large package index. This page
> could explain the package in general and gives some hints on how to
> start - not like extensive vignettes, but just to get started, e.g. list
> the "most important" functions.  This page could typically contain
> information that is in the DESCRIPTION file (which contains valuable
> information hardly every accessed by a general user), such as who is the
> maintainer, how to report bugs and so on.
> 
> If you think the above is a good idea, then, would it even be useful to
> enforce the existance of such a Rd page in R CMD check?

The basic idea of having a short overview seems good but
the particular suggestion of using ?packagename would
seem to collide with already existing .Rd files as
many packages are named after their constructor, e.g. the zoo
package.