[R] what constitutes a 'complete sentence'?

Rolf Turner r.turner at auckland.ac.nz
Sat Jul 4 00:26:01 CEST 2015


On 04/07/15 06:27, Yihui Xie wrote:
> Sigh, how natural it is to say "This package ...", but you probably
> don't know a package can be easily rejected by CRAN simply because of
> this phrase "This package" (it has been clearly stated in the R-exts
> manual).

Urrrkkkk!  I *did* "know" that, but had forgotten.  Apologies for my 
wrong-headed suggestion.  Thanks for pointing out my error.

> I don't think the grammar is the problem here. When in doubt, I always
> check what MASS does:
> http://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/MASS/index.html Turns out its
> description is not a complete sentence, either.
>
> Sounds like R has become a language for statistical computing and
> graphics, plus English grammar since 3.0.x.

The CRAN guidelines should be rewritten so that they say what they 
*mean*.  If a complete sentence is not actually required --- and it 
seems abundantly clear that it is not --- then guidelines should not say 
so.  Rather they should say, clearly and comprehensibly, what actually 
*is* required.

cheers,

Rolf Turner

-- 
Technical Editor ANZJS
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276



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