[Rd] Rcmd install mypkg

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 10/1/2006 1:10 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> On 10/1/06, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:
>> On 1 October 2006 at 08:53, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>> | On 10/1/06, Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
>> | > Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>> | > > This would seem to violate the user interface stereotype that
>> | > > command lines are case insensitive on Windows.
>> | >
>> | > This is an improvement. R tries to be as unique as possible on all
>> | > platforms.
>> |
>> | Not sure what the above means but if you mean it works the same
>> | on all platforms that is an error in the design of the software in my view.
>> | The objective should be that it fits into the environment its working in.
>> |
>> | Any Windows user can tell the difference between "clunky" UNIX-derived
>> | software which does not feel right on the Windows platform and
>> | software that adapts its interface to work like all other Windows programs
>> | in that environment.
>>
>> Generally speaking, I think many of us would beg to differ and much rather
>> (continue to) see consistency of R across platforms.
>>
>> Personally speaking, I would think that taking what I consider to be a clunky
>> OS and UI to be the gold standard as somewhat questionable. But that may just
>> be me.
>>
>> Cheers, Dirk
>>
>> --
>> Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.
>>                                                  -- Thomas A. Edison
>>
> 
> I don't want to get into a debate on the merits of an OS but in terms of
> user interface principles one wants to fit into the environment that the
> software is working in rather than have the user familiarize themselves
> with multiple styles of interaction.

This is why Rgui tries to follow Windows conventions (not entirely 
successfully, and about 10 years behind the times, but anyway...). 
However, the command line utilities are used in the build process for 
packages and for R itself, and so it makes maintenance a lot easier for 
those to follow consistent cross-platform conventions.

Requiring Perl script names to be specified in a case-sensitive way 
doesn't affect the R build process, but it does mean that a script 
written on Windows is slightly more likely to work when someone runs it
on another platform.  There's an "install" command in at least some 
flavours of Unix that would be invoked instead of R's INSTALL script if 
you said "R CMD install" on one of those platforms, and that's not a 
good thing.

So what I'd suggest you do if you find typing INSTALL to be painful is 
to install an alias or command script that wraps it up in a way that 
feels more comfortable to you.

Duncan Murdoch


> If you are running UNIX and Windows you can expect differences when
> you move from one to the other but you do not expect differences when
> running one program vs. another in the same OS.
> 
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