CRAN does not validate R packages!

A friend called me the other day for advice on how to submit an R package to CRAN along with a proof his method was mathematically sound. I replied with some items of advice taken from my (limited) experience with submitting packages. And with the remark that CRAN would not validate the mathematical contents of the associated package manual. Nor even the validity of the R code towards delivering the right outcome as stated in the manual. This shocked him quite seriously as he thought having a package accepted by CRAN was a stamp of validation of both the method and the R code. It would be nice of course but would require so much manpower that it seems unrealistic. Some middle ground is to aim at a journal or a peer community validation where both code and methods are vetted. Which happens for instance with the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics. Or the Journal of Statistical Software (which should revise its instructions to authors that states “The majority of software published in JSS is written in S, MATLAB, SAS/IML, C++, or Java”. S, really?!)

As for the validity of the latest release of R (currently R-3.6.1 which came out on 2019-07-05, named Action of the Toes!), I figure the bazillion R programs currently running should be able to detect any defect pretty fast, although awareness of the incredible failure of sample() reported in an earlier post took a while to appear.

This entry was posted on July 10, 2019 at 12:19 am and is filed under pictures, R, University life with tags bayess, Cockatoo Island, CRAN, industrial ruins, mcsm, R, R package, S, sample, Sydney Harbour, Ultimixt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “CRAN does not validate R packages!”

CRAN does not validate R packages! | R-bloggers Says:
July 11, 2019 at 10:15 am

[…] article was first published on R – Xi'an's Og, and kindly contributed to […]

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corynissen Says:
July 10, 2019 at 3:23 pm

I think that’s what rOpenSci does. Peer review and validation for their ecosystem. https://ropensci.org/

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- xi'an Says:
  July 10, 2019 at 4:09 pm
  
  Thank you, I will forward the link to my friend.
  
  Reply
- Ian Fellows Says:
  July 11, 2019 at 5:11 am
  
  rOpenSci is much narrower than one might think. It only accepts packages that are for things like data access. The Journal of Open Source Software is a great alternative https://joss.theoj.org/
  
  Reply
- Fr. Says:
  July 13, 2019 at 4:24 pm
  
  I was also going to suggest rOpensci [1] and JOSS [2].
  
  [1]: https://ropensci.org/
  [2]: https://joss.theoj.org/about
  
  I am not sure, however, that those would be appropriate for a package that require mathematical validation: for that, I would rather suggest a ‘standard’ journal like, indeed, the JSS, or even better, a mathematics or applied math. journal.
  
  Reply