[Rd] Minimum requirements for package submission

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 28/08/2013 10:59 AM, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> On 28 August 2013 at 09:44, Hadley Wickham wrote:
> | >> Related rant: I really wish we had "CHANGES" file, or a section in the
> | >> manuals. It is virtually impossible to look at a current "Writing R
> | >> Extensions" manual, and a previous one, in order to get a succinct view of
> | >> what changed.  Having to diff the NEWS files, or glancing at commit logs
> | >> via
> | >> the RCS is a very poor proxy.
> | >
> | > I don't understand the difference between the CHANGES file you are asking
> | > for and the NEWS file.  Do you want something in purely chronological order,
> | > rather than categorized as NEWS is?
> |
> | I think Dirk was talking about a CHANGES/NEWS file for "Writing R extensions"
>
> Yup. In the sense of "something to look at to see what one may need to change".
>
> Eg for Debian, the "Policy" document has a version number making discussion /
> comparison and reference more tangible.  Also, if/when an update is made, an
> 'upgrade checklist' is provided -- see eg [1] for the most recent annoucement
> [2] for the policy manual web presence, and [3] for the complete checklist
> with a roll-back history.
>
> I am not suggesting this exact format. I am merely pointing that it
> (currently) takes a couple of extra steps to stay on top of required changes,
> which in turn leads to everybody just uploading to CRAN as a trial, which in
> turn overburdens the CRAN maintainers.  Seems suboptimal to me.

There is the "--as-cran" option to R CMD check, so it's not quite as bad 
as you suggest, but as others have mentioned there is some ambiguity 
about how NOTEs in those checks are treated.  But isn't any "overburden" 
mainly a CRAN problem, so not something to be discussed on this list?

To be clear:  I am not a CRAN member.  I only know CRAN policy as an 
outsider, same as you.  And before an argument starts about where CRAN 
policy discussions should take place:  this is certainly not the 
place.   You can ask CRAN where such discussions should happen, but I 
suspect the answer will be "nowhere public", because most public 
discussions of CRAN policy devolve very quickly into ridiculous demands 
on the volunteers who run it.

Duncan Murdoch
>
> Dirk
>
> [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/09/msg00006.html
> [2] http://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals#policy
> [3] http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/upgrading-checklist.txt
>