Dear all I was wondering whether such a long post could be fortune-ed. What do you think?
Regards Liviu On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Sharpie <ch...@sharpsteen.net> wrote: > Well, I can think of three ways it can go down: > > > 1. You want a shiny new pony. > > You ask about it on the mailing list and it seems that everyone else in the > world responds "Hell yeah! I want to ride that too!". In this case the > natives are restless enough that someone on R-Core may personally implement > the feature- especially if they want to ride the pony as well. > > In this case, you need to provide a detailed specification of what kind of > pony you want, how it should be groomed and the exact pitch at which you > want it to whinny. A good template for such as spec would be a Python > Enhancement Proposal (PEP) which is the way community-suggested core changes > are implemented in python. An example is: > http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0389/ > > However, going this route is extremely rare. You have to have a significant > amount of the user community rallying behind your idea and buy-in from core > developers who are interested in implementing and, most importantly, > maintaining and supporting the code. > > > 2. You want a shiny new pony but not many other people in the word seem > interested. > > In this situation you can do the work yourself, or with a group of other > like-minded pony enthusiasts, to bring your idea into the world. Perhaps > the genetic material you are looking for is already present in the vast > herds of other ponies running wild on CRAN and elsewhere and you just have > to do a little breeding to get what you want. Other times, the only way to > do right is to write everything from scratch. Either way, in the end you > will have a pony that shines exactly the way you want it to that you can > enjoy for the rest of your life. > > In this case, getting your new pony into R Core is unlikely. The best > response you can hope for is something along the lines of "That is a mighty > fine pony you have there, but we really don't want it crapping all over our > stable". They are not trying to be rude- the facts of life are that the > members of R Core have a limited amount of time and a lot of other ponies to > clean up after. Add to that the fact that shoveling pony shit is a > thankless job that does not pay well and it is understandable why R Core may > be conservative about the number of ponies they let into the official > stable. > > However, they will be more than happy to provide your pony with a stall at > CRAN so that everyone else in the world can take it out for a spin. I have > never had a problem with installing and using packages from CRAN, even on > windows machines that have been locked down and then shot in both kneecaps > by the friendly neighborhood IT gestapo. All and all, this option is > actually a pretty sweet deal; you will just have to drop by the CRAN stall > every once and a while and deal with the pony droppings yourself or people > will start to avoid it because of the smell. > > > 3. You want a shiny new pony, but dont have the time or energy to pick out > or put together the exact one you want. > > In this case, you can still get the pony you want but it will cost you > money. There are R programmers out there who can write you a package if you > pay them the right price. Supporting your local grad student population can > also work; hunger is a great motivator. > > In the end you can also pay a corporate pony breeder like SAS for a trusty > thoroughbred that is well respected by people in high places. However, you > may notice that these ponies bear some telltale signs of inbreeding-- one of > their eyes may not point in the same direction as the other or the pony > becomes confused easily when put in an unfamiliar situation. Given there is > not a lot you can do about these defects, you may suffer a crippling case of > buyers remorse especially when you see the bill. > > > Ok, I think i've thoroughly beat this horse analogy to death and I'm going > to stop now. > > -Charlie > > > ----- > Charlie Sharpsteen > Undergraduate-- Environmental Resources Engineering > Humboldt State University > -- > View this message in context: > http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/How-do-you-make-a-formal-feature-request-tp2333593p2333737.html > Sent from the R devel mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > -- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
