On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Peter Dalgaard <p.dalga...@biostat.ku.dk> wrote: >>> - a good reason to want post-install validation is that validity can depend >>> on other part of the system outside developer control (e.g. an overzealous >>> BLAS optimization, sacrificing accuracy and/or standards compliance for >>> speed, can cause trouble). This is also a reason for not making too >>> far-reaching statements about validity.
I wanted to echo Peter's point here. It's the main reason why we don't claim our distribution of R is validated: *no* software can be considered validated outside of the environment where it is installed and used. (We do however claim Revolution R is ready for a validation *process*, a small but significant part of which is coming on-site to run tests and verify the results.) We've come across a number of environmental issues (locales, random number generators, shared libraries, path settings, many others) that may affect the validation process. My main point here is that R can only be validated in situ, and the process isn't practical to automate. With the right build tools in place, many of the *tests* can be automated, but that leaves out validation on how the results are stored, used, and accessed in practice. > Muenchen, Robert A (Bob) wrote: >>> Asking to add a superfluous step to an installation may seem like a > waste of time, and technically it is. But psychologically this testing > will have a important impact that will silence many critics. Nonetheless, Bob has an excellent point here -- even short of a complete validation process, *perception* can prevent the validation ball from getting stuck in the first place. Giving the user some degree of easily-digestible feedback that the installed R has run and passed a battery of tests could help for that, and is something we'll look at for the Revolution R distribution. # David Smith P.S. For those who subscribe to r-devel but not r-help, some further discussion of validation for R is here: http://blog.revolution-computing.com/2009/01/analyzing-clinical-trial-data-with-r.html -- David M Smith <da...@revolution-computing.com> Director of Community, REvolution Computing www.revolution-computing.com Tel: +1 (206) 577-4778 x3203 (Seattle, USA) ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
