[R-pkg-devel] Spelling and manual CRAN inspection

[Kevin R. Coombes]

Hi Jeff,

I think you are inferring an attitude in my initial message that wasn't 
actually present. I greatly appreciate the hard work that CRAN 
maintainers put in on behalf of the community. And I really did (and do) 
want to understand why some of their valuable volunteer time should be 
occupied deciding if "possible mis-spellings" are (a) real and (b) 
important enough to do something about.

I also admit to being possibly the world's worst typist. I often 
mis-spell multiple words in a sentence, and I rely on numerous spell 
checkers to point out the problems so I can fix them right away. (But 
right now, I am unhappy that the spell-checker in my email client 
insists that "mis-spell" and it variants doesn't have a hyphen in it.) 
So, I agree that correct spelling is worth someone spending their time 
on. But that someone (in my opinion) should be the package author and 
maintainer, not the CRAN maintainers.

Part of the issue is that the mis-spellings are reported from R CMD 
check as a NOTE, not a WARNING nor an ERROR. They don't affect the code 
in any way (unlike the consequences of trying to import the "grpahics" 
package -- boy, was that hard to type.). Further, most of the "possible 
mis-spellings" that I have seen flagged in my own packages are false 
positives. (As noted above; I use spell-checkers at several points along 
the way so I can correct them before I submit.) Moreover, the results 
from different spell-checkers (such as those on different CRAN machines) 
are inconsistent. That increases the probability that any package is 
going to get flagged with false positives and require manual intervention.

I don't know; maybe the CRAN maintainers like checking other people's 
spelling manually. But having to do that on a regular basis would soon 
make me run screaming from the room.

Best,
   Kevin

On 7/16/2021 1:07 PM, Jeff Newmiller wrote:
> Spelling has different importance to different people. You are expressing a value judgement that differs from the values of R Core, but are presenting your opinion as if they are facts. My point is that your challenging attitude IMO makes having a conversation about those concerns difficult. (I am not associated with R Core in any way, and do in fact empathize with your frustration with the process.)
>
> I think it is worth pointing out that spelling errors in the DESCRIPTION file are of greater significance than other areas of a package as they can affect assignment of responsibility and permissions, as well as reflecting poorly on the CRAN summary web pages. I suspect that problems with DESCRIPTION files in the past lead to this requirement.
>
> I would encourage you to pause for a day or two before sending off messages like this in the future... a lesson I have learned the hard way myself.
>
> On July 16, 2021 9:08:27 AM PDT, "Kevin R. Coombes" <kevin.r.coombes using gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>   I have been updating a couple of R packages this morning. One of them
>> triggered a manual inspection for "possibly mis-spelled words in
>> DESCRIPTION" for my last name (Coombes) --- even though none of the
>> other 20 packages that I maintain has ever triggered that particular
>> NOTE. A second package also triggered a manual inspection for
>> mis-spelled words including "Proteomics". (These flags only arose on
>> the
>> debian CRAN machine, not the Windows CRAN machine, and not on my home
>> machines. And let's ignore how many spelling corrections I had to make
>> while typing this email)
>>
>> *My question, however, is: why should this NOTE ever trigger a manual
>> inspection?* That makes more work for the CRAN maintainers, who I am
>> sure have better things to do than evaluate spelling. Anything that
>> would actually stop the package from working (mis-spelling a keyword,
>> or
>> mis-spelling the name of package that is imported) is going to cause an
>> automatic ERROR and a rejection of the submission without making more
>> work for the CRAN maintainers. The other mis-spellings may reflect
>> poorly on the package author, but since they are NOTEs, it is easy
>> enough to get them fixed for the next round without making human
>> eyeballs look at them.
>>
>> Best,
>>     Kevin
>>
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