[Rd] was: Problem building (binary) packages for Windows

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "PetRd" == Peter Ruckdeschel <peter.ruckdeschel at web.de>
>>>>>     on Mon, 18 May 2009 11:47:11 +0200 writes:

    PetRd> Dear Martin, Uwe and Brian
    PetRd> thanks for your comments --- point taken:

    PetRd> On Sat, 16 May 2009, Martin Maechler wrote:

    >>>>>>> "UweL" == Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de>
    >>>>>>> on Fri, 15 May 2009 20:48:03 +0200 writes:
    >>>>>>> 
    >> 
    >> [.............]   
    >> 
    >> >> Thank you for clarifying this and once again apologies for stirring you
    >> >> up with something that had been fixed in the mean-time already.
    >> 
    UweL> For R-devel, it is in the svn logs. Since it may change again, NEWS is 
    UweL> not always edited while things are tested.
    >> 
    >> well, and if a new feature is introduced, it gets a NEWS entry
    >> (hopefully), but if the new feature contains bugs, these will be
    >> fixed of course with*OUT* another NEWS entry.
    >> 
    >> Indeed, the NEWS apply to (eventually) released versions of R,
    >> so fixing transient bugs is *never* documented in NEWS.
    >> 
    PetRd> Convinced.

    PetRd> And to make this clear:
    PetRd> I did not mean at all to criticize any development undertaken in R-devel
    PetRd> ---
    PetRd> you are all doing a great job in enhancing R, and you deserve all due
    PetRd> acknowledgement for this.

    PetRd> My point was rather that instead of keeping one's own checkout
    PetRd> repository of the R project's svn archives, it would help somehow
    PetRd> to make changes visible / accesible more easily ---
    PetRd> of course without bothering R core developers to actively maintain
    PetRd> this, but rather do this in an automatic way.

    PetRd> Embarrasingly enough, now that you have explained to me the
    PetRd> different purposes of NEWS and svn logs, I realized that there
    PetRd> already  is

    PetRd> http://developer.r-project.org/R.svnlog.2008

    PetRd> (the name of which might get updated to
    PetRd> ..../R.svnlog.2009, though)

    PetRd> Still, one might improve upon this without to much effort,
    PetRd> I think. Possible starting points could be

    PetRd> (1) webSVN + trac access to the R subversion repository
    PetRd> (2) using some r-forge type architecture for R core as well,
    PetRd> --- in particular for the source code management provided there
    PetRd> (3) setting up an RSS feed for the svn logs ---- not unlike
    PetRd> http://developer.r-project.org/blosxom.cgi/R-devel

    PetRd> As one more step ahead one could think of

    PetRd> (4) merging corresponding RSS feeds for CHANGES, NEWS,
    PetRd> and the svn logs in order to see all changes on one spot.

    PetRd> Do you think setting up any of these items would be hard
    PetRd> to establish?

not so hard.

However  I personally would not really want any of these, for at
least two reasons :

1.   For (1), (2) : This needs more ("interactive") web modules
     enabled on  svn.r-project.org.
     When we move the R sources there, one of the reason was
     that the previous R source server(s) had been broken in
     (yes, hackers; ssh identity theft, ... whatever); and one
     of my goals has been to keep the system as secure as
     possible; one part of this was to have as little apache
     modules as necessary, another to have *no* users
     (contrary to R-forge, e.g.)

2.   Only speaking for myself, I think most R-corers prefer not
     to be watched by paparazzi and the mob at large.  Hence,
     *not* providing dashboards or GUIs, but just "good ole"
     programmer's tools is somewhat intentional.


    PetRd> Maybe this is already done; but I have not been aware of this.
    >> ... leading us back to what Brian already said:
    >> >>  'Under development' needs to be taken seriously.
    >> 
    PetRd> if asked, I would have agreed before, and surely now do
    PetRd> even more so...

Good! Thank you, Peter.

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich