[R] First R Package --- Advice?

Duncan Murdoch murdoch.duncan at gmail.com
Wed Feb 6 15:54:09 CET 2013


On 06/02/2013 9:49 AM, Hadley Wickham wrote:
> >> I have heard of people using noweb to do this, but I can't point to any
> >> examples.  I'd actually recommend against it.  Good documentation files
> >> don't
> >> make good source files.
> >
> > the compiler package in base R is, apparently, developed using noweb
> > https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/src/library/compiler/noweb, which provide
> > excellent documentation of the code for other developers and is not quite
> > what Ivo was suggesting.
>
> I'd argue that there's an important distinction between documenting a
> function (how to use it) vs. documenting an algorithm (how it works).
> I think noweb can work well for describing how something works, but
> it's not so good for describing how to use it (as evidence see the 400
> page latex package manuals that don't help you at all)

I agree about that.

Duncan Murdoch



More information about the R-help mailing list