From hb at maths.lth.se  Thu Mar 11 16:22:58 2004
From: hb at maths.lth.se (Henrik Bengtsson)
Date: Thu Mar 11 16:23:41 2004
Subject: [Rd] Is it ok to use the name on a bundle and one if its packages?
Message-ID: <001901c4077c$bc42cc90$e502eb82@maths.lth.se>

Hello,

I wonder if it is unwise to name a bundle the same as one of its
packages. For instance, I now have a huge package called 'aroma' that
I basically want to split up in several smaller packages, say
'aroma.core', 'aroma.io', 'aroma.explore', 'aroma.trial',
'aroma.deprecated' etc, which simplifies maintenance but also the
overview. For convenience, one could have a wrapper package
'aroma.all' that loads all the above packages. 

As a typically user will make use of methods in the, say, three
packages 'aroma.core', 'aroma.io' and 'aroma.explore' I would also
like to have a wrapper package that loads these three "typical"
packages. This package I would like to call 'aroma', just like the
bundle. Is this wise, or should I rename the bundle to say 'AROMA'? 

I would prefer that the user could install the bundle by

  install.packages("aroma")

without having to care if I distribute the methods in one package
called 'aroma' or bundle of packages called 'aroma'. Moreover,
'library(aroma)' will also do for the typical user too. To turn it
around, what I'm trying to do is to emulate the concept of
"subpackages".

Another advantage is that if you first start out with a package
'aroma' that people installs, then you can without having to tell the
users, change it to be a bundle. 'update.package()' will still work;
Same if you want to revert to a package. I haven't tested if it works
in practice, though. 

BTW: I remember reading some r-help/r-devel(?) comments about not
supporting bundles in the future and just keeping the concept of
packages. Is this something that should we expected to happen?
Personally I think a bundle is a convenient way to distribute packages
that are used together, but not necessarily loaded at the same time.

Best wishes

Henrik Bengtsson

Dept. of Mathematical Statistics @ Centre for Mathematical Sciences
Lund Institute of Technology/Lund University, Sweden 
(Sweden +1h UTC, Melbourne +11 UTC, Calif. -8h UTC)
+46 708 909208 (cell), +46 46 320 820 (home), 
+1 (508) 464 6644 (global fax),
+46 46 2229611 (off), +46 46 2224623 (dept. fax)
h b @ m a t h s . l t h . s e, http://www.maths.lth.se/~hb/


[Rd] Is it ok to use the name on a bundle and one if its packages?
Henrik Bengtsson