> From: r-devel-boun...@r-project.org > [mailto:r-devel-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Janko Thyson > Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 11:19 AM > To: r-de...@r-project. org > Subject: Re: [Rd] a small suggestion for improving the > building of packages ... > Dear Uwe, > in principle, I totally agree with your point of politely > forcing developers > to write well documented packages. However, when you're trying to put > together a package, you (or at least I) never get it > completely right on the > first, say, 20 tries ;-) Yet, by running package.skelleton() > over and over > to keep track of changes you made during the process, you > overwrite all Rd > files each time - including the ones that you might already > have put a lot > of effort into.
Running package.skeleton more than once is destructive. Perhaps it needs an update=TRUE/FALSE sort of option to let you add functions and Rd templates. When I start a package I don't use package.skeleton, mainly because it won't make all the usual directories that I expect to eventually use: src, data, inst, test (or it is tests?), etc. I'd rather that it made all the usual directories (with the proper spelling) so I could delete them if they ended up being empty. Do other package writers use package.skeleton routinely? I copy a template package directory, edit the template DESCRIPTION file, copy my code into the appropriate subdirectories, and run prompt(func, filename="pkg/man/func.Rd") on each function or dataset. The last step is a pain: it would be nice if prompt had a dir= or destdir= argument so that prompt(func, destdir="pkg/man") would make the file "pkg/man/func.Rd". Bill Dunlap Spotfire, TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com > And delaying documentation to the very end of > the process is > probably not the best idea either ;-) IMHO the community > should favor the > approaches taken by packages such as roxygen or inlinedocs as > at least it > provides some sort of direct synchronization between code and > documentation. > Maybe one could agree on rejecting code that is missing > roxygen or inlinedoc > code, which would ensure that code is documented properly. In > fact, isn't > programming all about automating unnecessary manual > procedures? I would > count starting from scratch with all help files time and time > again to be > one of those unnecessary procedures. This time could better > be invested in > increasing the package's functionality. > > Best regards, my thanks go out to everyone as well, > Janko > > > > Thanks, as always, to everyone for their hard work to keep my > > statistical > > > computing free and easy. > > > > > > Best, > > > > > > Kyle > > > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > R-devel_at_r-project.org mailing list > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
