[R-pkg-devel] Non-mainstream packages in vignette / dependency

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 22 May 2015 at 17:31, Peter Meissner wrote:
| many thanks for the hint to your drat framework. Since it seems, that
| adding 'http://ghrr.github.io/drat/' as 'Additional_repositories' in
| the package DESCRIPTION file, does fulfill  the !formal! requirements,
| I think I will try if I can get through with it and will report the
| results to the list.

Awesome!
 
| Installation works out of the box with...
| 
| install.packages(
| 	"AnomalyDetection",
| 	repos = "http://ghrr.github.io/drat",
| 	type="source"
| )
| 
| 
| ... and first hurdle Winbuilder (devtools::build_win()) accepts the
| DESCRIPTION field ...
| 
| Additional_repositories: http://ghrr.github.io/drat
| 
| 
| ... and notes the following without raising a complaint:
| 
| Suggests or Enhances not in mainstream repositories:
|    AnomalyDetection, BreakoutDetection
| 
| Availability using Additional_repositories specification:
|    AnomalyDetection    yes   http://ghrr.github.io/drat
|    BreakoutDetection   yes   http://ghrr.github.io/drat

Wickedly cool. I didn't even think about trying that yet!
 
| Now my question is what status 'http://ghrr.github.io/drat/' has. Is it a
| repo bundling Github published packages open for public and going to stay
| there for good?

That is the idea! You will note that I didn't put my name anywhere to keep it
neutral.  On the other hand I didn't want to be 'too annoying' about it and
have not pushed it too hard yet.  I gave commit rights to a collaborator who
expressed interest in using it, but he is still at 'trying first with a local
repo' stage and has not pushed anything ... 

| Or is it more a private thing? To put it another way.
| Should I use my 'own' fork of your efforts
| (http://petermeissner.github.io/drat/) or is it ok that I use ghrr and
| I can assume that AnomalyDetection and BreakoutDetection stay there - I
| would prefer using ghrr.

It is up to you. You have choices.

You could pat and hope that the repo will be there.  I have tried all these
years to build up some karma and trust that things I maintain won't disappear
over night -- but one can never know, can one? ;-) If you'd rather use your
own drat repo, that is entirely within the spec.  Nobody can stop you.

"We" as a community have barely started to figure if additional repos can and
will work.  But what you did here is very exciting and encouraging for drat,
so thumbs up from me!

Cheers, Dirk

PS I already have three drat repos because one is for the drat code proper, I
opened one just for Rcpp and related, and this third 'general' one under the
'ghrr' handle. It has already proven to very useful for myself and colleagues
as I use to feed a bunch of servers at work with packages not otherwise on a
repo.  Such as RcppR6 by Rich, Rblpapi by Whit/myself/John, the breakout and
anomaly packages you use, and some more.

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org