Beyond what Gabor said, I might download a package that uses "zoo", then
use "zoo" directly in other contexts without ever downloading it
directly. Total downloads would capture that; top level downloads
would not. The flip side is that a package that requires "zoo" may only
use it for features that I don't use. This would support the use of top
level downloads over total downloads. Spencer
Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Fellows, Ian <ifell...@ucsd.edu> wrote:
6. Regarding package dependancies, I was thinking about also counting the
number of top level downloads, as approximated
by the number of downloads where a reverse dependancy was not downloaded in the
next 5 min by the same IP.
Top level downloads discriminates against infrastructure packages,
i.e. packages that are not necessarily directly used by users or even
downloaded directly by users. It can make it seem as if a package
that is widely used, but not directly by users, is barely used at all
so total downloads seems a better metric of popularity than top level
downloads.
I can't find it just now but remember reading a post on another list,
or maybe it was his blog, by the author of certain software (not
related to R) that was fundamental to Ruby on Rails but as
infrastructure would not be directly observed by the user yet Ruby on
Rails got all the credit and his key contribution got almost none
despite the fact that Ruby on Rails likely would have never achieved
its current high level of popularity without his contribution.
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