>>>>> "RR" == Raubertas, Richard <richard_rauber...@merck.com> >>>>> on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:46:41 -0400 writes:
RR> I agree that 'list' is a terrible package name, but only RR> secondarily because it is a data type. The primary RR> problem is that it is so generic RR> as to be almost totally uninformative about what the RR> package does. RR> For some reason package writers seem to prefer maximally RR> uninformative names for their packages. To take some RR> examples of recently announced packages, can anyone RR> guess what packages 'FDTH', 'rtv', or 'lavaan' do? Why RR> the aversion to informative names along the lines of RR> 'Freq_dist_and_histogram', 'RandomTimeVariables', and RR> 'Latent_Variable_Analysis', respectively? Hmm, apart from the other answers ("cutesiness", "tradition", "keyboard") about which I agree to some extent, there's the related question of what package names are / should be allowed. Interestingly, I haven't found this information as quickly as I expected {first looking at help(package.skeleton) as that could be the way to create your very first package}, I've quickly switched to the "Writing R Extensions" manual, and there, in Chapter "Creating R Packages", you have to search forward to > 1.1.1 The `DESCRIPTION' file > ---------------------------- > > The `DESCRIPTION' file contains basic information about the package in > the following format: > > Package: pkgname > Version: 0.5-1 > Date: 2004-01-01 > Title: My First Collection of Functions [............] > The `DESCRIPTION' file should be written entirely in ASCII for > maximal portability. > > The `Package' and `Version' fields give the name and the version of > the package, respectively. The name should consist of letters, > numbers, and the dot character and start with a letter. > The version is a sequence of at least ............ ............ So, the package name is currently limited to the regular expression [A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9.]+ {assuming that "A-Za-z" really gives R's c(LETTERS, letters), which is not true in quite a few locales} and in particular "_" are not allowed. If you are really interested in more, you should start discussing the matter on R-devel (rather than R-help). Note that the "_" is currently used as separator between package name and package version in some contexts, and allowing "_" be part of the package name itself may need more changes in the R project infrastructure (including package repositories and their tools !!) than we (R Core) would want to undertake (*and* maintain (!)), but as I say, R-devel is the place to propose and discuss changes to R. Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich RR> R.Raubertas >> -----Original Message----- From: >> r-help-boun...@r-project.org >> [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of >> Jeffrey J. Hallman Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 10:09 AM >> To: r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] [R-pkgs] >> New package "list" for analyzing list surveyexperiments >> >> I know nothing about your package, but "list" is a >> terrible name for it, as "list" is also the name of a >> data type in R. >> -- >> Jeff >> ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.