> [snip] There are several other things that were fully documented and still were removed. One of the latest cases was print.coefmat which was abruptly made Defunct without warning or grace period: code written for 1.8* didn't work in 1.9.0 and if corrected for 1.9.0 it wouldn't work in pre-1.9.0. Anything can change in R without warning, and your code may be broken anytime. Just be prepared.
This is true of many software packages. In our production environment we often (usually) run older versions of software, including statistical software, because of bugs or changed behaviors (or fears thereof) in new versions. We usually run the latest versions in our test and non-production systems and only upgrade our production systems when two conditions are satisfied: (1) we need the features in the upgrade and (2) we are comfortable that the upgraded package will run reliably. From what I can see, R is only distinguished from other software packages in these regards by the extreme speed with which bug fixes for the latest version are made available (in contrast, we're still waiting more than a year for fixes for bugs in some commercial software that were described as "critical" bugs by the vendor's support team) and the high level of respect accorded to users by the core developers (changes are debated and effects on existing software seem to be taken seriously).
One very helpful tool to deal with software updates is automated testing. I highly recommend it. R comes with a testing framework.
-- Tony Plate
cheers, jari oksanen -- Jari Oksanen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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