[Rd] Bounty on Error Checking

[ivo welch]

Dear R developers---I just spent half a day debugging an R program,
which had two bugs---I selected the wrongly named variable, which
turns out to have been a scalar, which then happily multiplied as if
it was a matrix; and another wrongly named variable from a data frame,
that triggered no error when used as a[["name"]] or a$name .  there
should be an option to turn on that throws an error inside R when one
does this.  I cannot imagine that there is much code that wants to
reference non-existing columns in data frames.

I know you guys are saints for developing without financial support.
but maybe we non-insider end-users can help by putting up a bounty
list on R-project for us end-users to contribute to?  I would pledge
$500 to a $10,000 fund that funds a project to comprehensively enhance
the programming and debugging aspects of R.  it would only take 20 of
us to make this possible.

personally, I think basic nudgeware is the way to go.  when a user
starts R in interactive mode, there should be a note that says,

 please donate $20 to the R foundation to support the development.
press enter to continue or enter your contribution number to avoid
this message in the future .

you can even accept the same string if need be.  it's a nudge only,
not a requirement.

regards,

/iaw

----
Ivo Welch (ivo.welch at gmail.com)
http://www.ivo-welch.info/
J. Fred Weston Professor of Finance
Anderson School at UCLA, C519
Director, UCLA Anderson Fink Center for Finance and Investments
Free Finance Textbook, http://book.ivo-welch.info/
Editor, Critical Finance Review, http://www.critical-finance-review.org/