[R-sig-ME] Development version of lme4 now passes its tests

[Douglas Bates]

The development version of the lme4 package on R-forge now passes its
tests with linear mixed models, nonlinear mixed models and generalized
linear mixed models.  It should also be capable of fitting generalized
nonlinear mixed models but I haven't written the user-callable
functions for those models yet.

This version represents a substantial redesign of the code (the last
one, I promise) and should be both faster and simpler than previous
versions.  I would recommend trying it if you have large data sets and
complex models (e.g. models with crossed or partially crossed grouping
factors) or if you are working with generalized linear mixed models or
nonlinear mixed models.  For example, Sharon Goldwater recently wrote
to the R-help list about peculiar relationships in her fitted GLMM
models (removing a parameter decreased the deviance) from the
currently released version of lme4.  She was kind enough to provide me
with the data and I could fit all her models, with consistent results,
in the development version of the package.

I'm still working on mcmcsamp so don't expect to get reasonable
results from that function yet.  (But soon, Ben, soon.)

This version of glmer allows the quasibinomial and quasipoisson
families.  I plan to add the Gamma family soon.  Are there any other
important families that I have missed?

I have added web pages documenting the C source code at
http://lme4.R-forge.R-project.org/doxygen.  In general you can use
http://lme4.R-forge.R-project.org/ as the 'home page' for the project.
 There is a link there to the project summary page.  You can browse
the source code for the package under the SCM (source code management)
tab on the project summary page.  The SCM tab provides information on
how you can access the svn repository.  Alternatively, you can wait
for the package builds to occur overnight (in Vienna) and install the
new version with

install.packages("lme4", repos = "http://r-forge.r-project.org")

I would appreciate reports of problems with this version.  Once I get
mcmcsamp running I will call this the alpha release of lme4_1.0.0 It
is much better to catch the bugs during the alpha and beta test phases
than to need to create bug-fix releases so please test it.

I think you should be able to submit bug reports directly if you have
an R-forge login.  There is a link to the Bugs tracker and the Feature
Request tracker on the project summary page.