[R] The steps of building library in R 2.1.1

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 7/21/2005 10:29 AM, Uwe Ligges wrote:
> Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> 
>> I think you have been using R too long.  Something like
>> this is very much needed.  There are two problems:
>> 
>> 1. the process itself is too complex (need to get rid of perl,
>>     integrate package development tools with package installation 
>>    procedure [it should be as easy as downloading a package], 
>>    remove necessity to set or modify any environment variables
>>     including the path variables).
>> 
>> 2. there is too much material to absorb just to create a package.
>>     The manuals are insufficient.
>> 
>> A step-by-step simplification is very much needed.  Its no
>> coincidence that there are a number of such descriptions on
>> the net (google for 'making creating R package') since I would 
>> guess that just about everyone has significant problems in creating 
>> their first package on Windows.
> 
> OK, if people really think this is required, I will sit down on a clean
> Windows XP machine, do the setup, and write it down for the next R Help
> Desk in R News -- something like "Creating my first R package under
> Windows"?
> 
> If anybody else is willing to contribute and can write something up in a
> manner that is *not* confusing or misleading (none of the other material
> spread over the web satisfies this requirement, AFAICS), she/he is
> invited to contribute, of course.
> 
> BTW, everybody else is invited to submit proposals for R Help Desk!!!

That sounds great.  Could you also take notes as you go about specific
problems in the writeup in the R-admin manual, so it can be improved for
the next release?

Another thing you could do which would be valuable:  get a student or
someone else who is reasonably computer literate, but unfamiliar with R
details, to do this while you sit watching and recording their mistakes.

Duncan Murdoch