[Rd] Testing R build when using --without-recommended-packages?

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 4 May 2021 at 14:10, Gabriel Becker wrote:
| A couple of things. Firstly, so far asI have ever heard, it's valid that a
| package have hard dependencies in its tests for packages listed only in
| Suggests.  In fact, that is one of the stated purposes of Suggests. An
| argument could be made, I suppose, that the base packages should be under
| stricter guidelines, but stats isn't violating the letter or intention of
| Suggests by doing this.

Like Ben, I also take the other side here and point you e.g. to the extended
discussion between Duncan and myself on r-package-devel (look for the thread
with Subject: "winUCRT failures").

Optional packages need testing for presence before they are used, and we are
slowly moving in that direction. Repeating "but that's not what we used to
do" is of limited interest as things do sometimes change for the better.

Dirk

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