[Rd] RFC: 'igraph' package update and backward compatibility

[Gábor Csárdi]

Dear R developers,

I am seeking advice on some $subject matter.

My package will have an update soon, that is not backward compatible
with the current version. It will likely break much of the existing
code. Many (~50) packages depend on 'igraph' and they, too,  will most
probably break with the new version.

My intended solution is, that I create a snapshot of the current
package, under another name (igraph0), and ask package maintainers to
depend on that version. Then, after a short time, I'll update the
current igraph version.

Do you see any drawbacks of this solution? Is there some existing
practice for situations like this? Suggestions are greatly
appreciated.

Btw. an alternative would be to ask them to depend on the exact
current version of the package. This is an easier solution, but it
won't give people the opportunity to load both versions of the package
at the same time, if they want to run their old code.

Thank You, Best Regards,
Gabor

-- 
Gabor Csardi <csardi.gabor at gmail.com> Dept. Statistics, Harvard University