[R] popular R packages

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 6:14 AM, Jim Lemon <jim at bitwrit.com.au> wrote:
>> Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>> R-Forge already has this but I don't think its used much.  R-Forge
>>> does allow authors to opt out which seems sensible lest it deter
>>> potential authors from submitting packages.
>>>
>>> I think objective quality metrics are better than ratings, e.g. does
>>> package
>>> have a vignette, has package had a release within the last year,
>>> does package have free software license, etc.  That would have
>>> the advantage that authors might react to increase their package's
>>> quality assessment resulting in an overall improvement in quality on CRAN
>>> that would result in more of a pro-active cycle whereas ratings are
>>> reactive
>>> and don't really encourage improvement.
>>>
>> I beg to offer an alternative assessment of quality. Do users download the
>> package and find it useful? If so, they are likely to download it again when
>> it is updated.
> 
> I was referring to motivating authors, not users, so that CRAN improves.
> 
>> Much as I appreciate the convenience of vignettes, regular
>> updates and the absolute latest GPL license, a perfectly dud package can
>> have all of these things. If a package is downloaded upon first release and
> 
> These are nothing but the usual  FUD against quality improvement, i.e. the
> quality metrics are not measuring what you want but the fact is that
> quality metrics can work and have had huge successes.  Also I think
> objective measures would be more accepted by authors than ratings.
> No one is going to be put off that their package has no vignette when
> obviously it doesn't and the authors are free to add one and instantly
> improve their package's rating.
> 
>> not much thereafter, the maintainer might be motivated to attend to its
>> shortcomings of utility rather than incrementing the version number every
>> month or so. Downloads, as many have pointed out, are not a direct
>> assessment of quality, but if I saw a package that just kept getting
>> downloaded, version after version, I would be much more likely to check it
>> out myself and perhaps even write a review for Hadley's neat site. Which I
>> will try to do tonight.
> 
> I was arguing for objective metrics rather than ratings. Downloading is not
> a rating but is objective although there are measurement problems as has
> been pointed out.  Also, the worst feature is that it does not react to changes
> in quality very quickly making it anti-motivating.

Gabor I think your approach will have more payoff in the long run.  I 
would suggest one other metric: the number of lines of code in the 
'examples' section of all the package's help files.

Frank
-- 
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University