[R] Packages - a great resource, but hard to find the right one

[hadley wickham]

> What do you mean here?  Surely all packages authors aim to provide reliable
> and effective software.  If they know that they are offering something
> unstable, they should say so clearly.  In fact, they should wait until it is
> stable.  Most R users are not researchers, but users.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if you have ever used R ;)  Yes, they
should wait until it is stable and free of bugs, but does this really
happen in reality?  The quality of packages varies widely, and even in
the best package it's difficult to find all bugs before release?

> This web reference shows that you are thinking of a quite different type of
> review.  What help would that be to a user?  (However helpful it could be to
> another researcher).

I was suggesting that data would be useful when selecting which
packages to review, not as part of the review.

> You're right, the thread has moved on.  No one would read either 1000
> reviews or 1000 brief paragraphs.  Reviewing should help to raise standards.
>  Good reviewers would point out connections with other packages and make
> comparisons.  (Which does take us partway back to the original thread.)

Which moves somewhat back towards my original suggestion of review
articles.  To me, an article which compared and contrasted four or
five packages on a given topic would be much more useful than an
article which reviewed only a single package.  I think basing reviews
around a specific topic/methodology would be more useful than basing
them around a single package.

Hadley

-- 
http://had.co.nz/