[Rd] NEWS file (was faqs)

[Simon Urbanek]

On Nov 15, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

> On 11/15/2007 9:57 AM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
>> On Nov 14, 2007, at 11:55 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>> inst/NEWS would have the advantage of consistency with R itself   
>>> which also has a NEWS file.
>>>
>> I vote for NEWS for reasons above plus because that's what I use in  
>> my  packages already ;).
>> IMHO it should be installed automatically if present, i.e. it   
>> shouldn't be necessary to have it in inst/NEWS, just plain NEWS  
>> should  suffice.
>
> And you're volunteering to make that change?
>

Yup, in R-devel now (43464). However, there are other candidate files  
as well and we don't do anything with the NEWS file just yet ... any  
further ideas?

Cheers,
Simon

>
>> Cheers,
>> Simon
>>>
>>> On Nov 14, 2007 10:15 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>  
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 14/11/2007 8:53 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>>>> Another possibility is to just place it at the end of the  
>>>>> vignette.
>>>>> That is where it is in the proto package:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://cran.r-project.org/doc/vignettes/proto/proto.pdf
>>>>>
>>>>> Package documentation is already quite scattered and adding
>>>>> a faq() command would add just one more thing one has
>>>>> to do.  Here are some places one might look already for
>>>>> documentation:
>>>>>
>>>>> package?mypackage
>>>>
>>>> Or just ?mypackage.  Writing R Extensions recommends package?  
>>>> mypackage,
>>>> with ?mypackage also working if that name isn't taken.  However,  
>>>> the
>>>> advice is ignored more than it is followed.
>>>>
>>>>> vignette(...)
>>>>> library(help = mypackage)
>>>>> ?mycommand
>>>>> home page
>>>>> WISHLIST file
>>>>> NEWS file
>>>>> THANKS file
>>>>> svn log
>>>>>
>>>>> I personally would give a much higher priority to a standardized
>>>>> place to find change information.  Some packages provide it.
>>>>> Some don't which is very frustrating since you see a new version
>>>>> and have no idea what has changed.  If they do document it you
>>>>> often have to download the source just to get at the change   
>>>>> information.
>>>>
>>>> Where do you put it?  I put it in inst/ChangeLog, which ends up
>>>> installed in the package root as ChangeLog.
>>>>
>>>> Whenever this has come up in the past, there have been several
>>>> proposals, but no consensus.  So, to encourage consensus, I've  
>>>> got a
>>>> proposal:
>>>>
>>>> Why don't we vote on a location, with every voter agreeing to   
>>>> follow the
>>>> majority?  The only condition I'd put on it is that it should be
>>>> something that gets installed, hence somewhere in inst, but I'd  
>>>> be  happy
>>>> to change the name if ChangeLog doesn't win.
>>>>
>>>> My vote is for inst/ChangeLog.
>>>>
>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 14, 2007 8:22 PM, roger koenker  <roger at ysidro.econ.uiuc.edu 
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>> An extremely modest proposal:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It would be nice if packages could have a FAQ and if
>>>>>>
>>>>>>      faq(package.name)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> would produce this faq.  And if, by default
>>>>>>
>>>>>>      faq()
>>>>>>      FAQ()
>>>>>>
>>>>>> would produce the admirable R faq...  Apologies in advance
>>>>>> if there is already a mechanism like this, but help.search()
>>>>>> didn't reveal anything.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> url:    www.econ.uiuc.edu/~roger                Roger Koenker
>>>>>> email   rkoenker at uiuc.edu                       Department of   
>>>>>> Economics
>>>>>> vox:    217-333-4558                            University of   
>>>>>> Illinois
>>>>>> fax:    217-244-6678                            Champaign, IL  
>>>>>> 61820
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ______________________________________________
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>>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>
>