[R-sig-ins] Hacking on the ChainLadder package?

[Ben]

Hi all,

I'm new to R but would like to work on (and hopefully contribute
usefully to) Markus Gesmann's excellent ChainLadder package.  However,
I don't have a development loop in place, so I'd appreciate some
guidance on how best to work on this.  I have the actual package
installed in

    ~/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.8/ChainLadder

and I have the code checked out from subversion in:

    ~/prog/chainladder-read-only

I'd like some way of editing the files,
e.g. ~/prog/chainladder-read-only/R/Triangles.R and testing it without
having to make a whole new package and install it.  However, I can't
seem to load the package from my subversion directory:

    > library(ChainLadder, lib="~/prog")
    Error in library(ChainLadder, lib = "~/prog/chainladder-read-only") : 
      there is no package called 'ChainLadder'

if I make the symbolic link "ChainLadder" to "chainladder-read-only" I
get:

    > library(ChainLadder, lib="~/prog")
    Error in library(ChainLadder, lib = "~/prog") : 
      'ChainLadder' is not a valid package -- installed < 2.0.0?

which I don't know what it means and google isn't super-helpful.  I'm
also not even sure I'm on the right track.

So anyway, I'd really appreciate it if Markus or another ChainLadder
or R guru has some tips on how best to use subversion and R.  If it
matters, I'm using emacs/ESS as my editor.

Thank you very much,

-- 
Ben Escoto