From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Tue Aug 29 16:12:44 2006
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:12:44 +0200
Subject: [Rd] 'CanMakeUseOf' field  [was ".. Add 'fields' argument ..]
In-Reply-To: <44F4473D.9030203@bank-banque-canada.ca>
References: <m2wt8sgyo0.fsf@ziti.fhcrc.org>
	<17651.65163.240840.365787@stat.math.ethz.ch>
	<44F4473D.9030203@bank-banque-canada.ca>
Message-ID: <17652.19292.998960.686119@stat.math.ethz.ch>

>>>>> "PaulG" == Paul Gilbert <pgilbert at bank-banque-canada.ca>
>>>>>     on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:55:09 -0400 writes:

    PaulG> Martin Maechler wrote:
    >> ...
    >> 
    >> The idea was a field related to but weaker than 'Suggests' :
    >> Something like
    >> 'canMakeUseOf: <pkg1> [, <pkg2>, ... ]
    >> which is *not* used in any QA/QC checking, but is purely
    >> informative: If <pkg1> is require()able, then some examples may
    >> look nicer, a function may provide another feature, etc, etc.
    >> Alternatives to 'canMakeUseOf' would have been
    >> 'isHappilyCoworkingWith' ....
    >> 
    >> What do you (R-devel listeners) think about the idea?

    PaulG> I still like this idea.  I prefer 'canMakeUseOf' to 
    PaulG> 'isHappilyCoworkingWith'  mainly because it seems less ambiguous.

Thanks, Paul.
As you may have guessed I should have put a  " :-) "  beside the
'isHappily...' .

Of course, even 'CanMakeUseOf' {we should capitalize the first letter}
is rather too long, but before finding the proper term, we should
agree on usefulness of such a new field.
Apart from the use of package authors {some could note that
other packages make use of theirs, without already depending on
or suggesting them}, it's one of those fields that should help
in the future to explore (e.g. cluster or neighborhood-graph)
the growing high-dimensional space of R packages.

Martin




[Rd] 'CanMakeUseOf' field [was ".. Add 'fields' argument ..]
Martin Maechler