RKWard 0.6.4-1 for OS X [was: Preview - Input needed?]

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi,

On Wed, 3 Feb 2016 19:31:17 +0900
Aaron Batty <abatty at sfc.keio.ac.jp> wrote:
> > actually it was once called "Install dependencies", until somebody
> > pointed out that this is not what the option is doing. The
> > corresponding parameter in install.packages() is called
> > "dependencies", but dependencies=TRUE means installing both hard
> > dependencies _and_ suggested packages, while the default
> > dependencies=NA still means installing all true dependencies.
> >
> 
> ...With all due respect to whomever pointed that out...
> 
> Who cares what the R command is or does? In most cases, if people
> knew how to use R "naked," they wouldn't be using RKWard.

agreed. But I think - correct me, if I'm wrong - it is exactly this
difference that you find confusing, and nothing else.

>  In the R
> GUI for OSX, it says "install dependencies," and it uses
> dependencies=TRUE. If it's good enough for the official GUI from
> CRAN, I think it's clear enough. In fact, deviating from it is
> confusing.

But following the official OSX GUI would be no less confusing, then,
IMO. Right now, in RKWard, the option does exactly what it says it does.
We _always_ install hard dependencies. And what would be the point of
offering to install broken packages, anyway? What we _do_ offer is
choosing to install suggested packages or not.

(Ideally the UI would also show some status information such as "x
packages marked for installation, y additional packages are going to be
installed, of which z are suggested". But that's for another day...)

> As a user, I don't care whether they are hard dependencies or
> suggested packages; I just want things to work. Something like that
> was a concern when we were using 56kbps modems and had 100MB hard
> drives. Today, who cares about an extra meg or two of "suggested"
> packages? We won't even notice!

True. No objections against making "Install suggested packages" checked
by default, if that's what you're suggesting. But I don't see the point
in going back to calling it "Install dependencies".

> Speaking of the bug tracker... Do I need a different login to add to
> it? I have a KDE account, but it doesn't seem to let me do anything...

Yes, you will need a separate account to bugs.kde.org, for what I
believe are mostly historical reasons. I still suggest using the same
e-mail address, as I would think the sysadmins will try to unify that
one day (whenever they don't have one of a thousand other things to
worry about).

Regards
Thomas
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