Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions • Hacker News Board

Re: Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions

#81

Post by pks016 » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

chocochunks wrote: post #72

donkeyboy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data.table is just so much faster, and the sql-like stntax is easier tonunderstand

I can never remember the data.table syntax, every time I use it I have to re-learn it. It doesn't feel very SQL to me either. There is an interface to use tidy syntax on data.tables and get's you 90% of the speed.

I can relate. I remember my most used syntax, but I have to search once in a while.

Re: Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions

#82

Post by greazy » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

Bioconductor (another R package repo) has stricter rules for submissions, such as minimum requirements for documentation.

CRAN should adopt the same set approach. Even widely used historical packages can be light on docs.

Re: Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions

#83

Post by greazy » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 11:45 PM UTC

gdevenyi wrote: post #78

As a sysadmin R is the absolute worst for installing and supporting packages.

Posit (previously RStudio) has a few tools to easy dependency problems such as rig.

Ive switched completely to conda handling my deps for R. Especially nicer on Linux systems as the packages are preinstalled.

Re: Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions

#84

Post by fithisux » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

Many packages could be just articles where they share code. There is no need to package it.

Re: Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions

#85

Post by vrighter » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 10:54 AM UTC

I think a language having a central repository of libraries that anyone can publish stuff in is a stupid idea in the first place. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when it goes to shit.