[Rd] OT: authorship and contacts for releasing packages (Re: reshape scaling with large numbers of times/rows)

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Rather off-topic, not really about R nor development at all,
but I think the issue is vaguely relevant for potential package writers.

Mitch Skinner wrote:
<snipped>
> When there's a chance (however slim, in this case) that something I
> write will end up getting used by someone else, I usually use my
> personal email address and general identity, because I know it'll follow
> me if I change jobs.  The concern, of course, being that someone using
> it will want to get in touch with me sometime in the far future.  I
> don't exactly have a tenured position.
<snipped>

I think refering to annoymous-mailers/personal contact addresses in
professional work is unwise. I usually use the affiliation/context
for which the work is done in codes/documentations, because:

(1) in many contexts, your employer owns any result of
"work for hire", so if you are paid to program on something,
while you can put your names down, your employers are also entitled
to erase all your claims of copyright or ownership on it. This sounds 
very hash, but that's how the reality is.

(2) for most users, some reasonable expectation of *continual*
support, by an organization, or at least more than 1 individual,
is important. Using an anonymous or "consumer" mailer, doesn't give
good impression about the _quality_  of the work, nor the
_continuity_ of it. While you think it helps
people to contact you *after* they have adopted your software,
having an unprofessionally-looking addresses attached to it
may deter people from *adopting* in the first place, so you lose
before it even starts.

(3) if somebody wants to contact you for a purpose that's important to
them, they will find a way - e.g. look it up to see who might be in
the same division or who might have been your boss, if e-mail bounces,
askes the postmaster, etc, or brunt-force googling. What do you
expect people will want to contact you for? I do recommend putting down
your full name (including middle ones, if one have a fairly common
surname and first name), but your work really should be associated
with the context in which it is in, if you actually want them to
be adopted by others.

(4) lastly, there seems to be some wishful thinking between
"...don't exactly have a tenured position..." and "...want to get
in touch with me sometime in the far future...". Tenure is seldomly
a result of "oh, I read-a-paper/use-a-software/whatever and it
impresses me so much that I have to hunt down the person who did it,
*whatever he is like*, *wherever he is*, *whatever he is doing*,
and hire him to work for me...".

I have been hunted down twice for work I did as far as I remember, after
I moved on from the context. One did a google, the other got it
from my ex-boss - the latter wanted some answers on
details, which I provided, and I did get an extended "thank you",
plus a "if you ever want a reference, I am willing
to testify to the quality of your work" statement, which is nice,
but cannot be taken literally nor seriously. I can just about imagine
the conversation went further as "I know somebody who might be 
interested in your expertises, and I am willing to put your name
forward, if you are interested". But that's *after* they obtain
what they contacted you for. It is almost unthinkable that you
get hunted down for a job offer based on some
software/mailing-list-postings etc you do...

HTL