> From: ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk [mailto:ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]
>
> On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Liaw, Andy wrote:
>
> > > From: Martin Maechler [mailto:maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch]
> > >
> > > >>>>> "Giovanni" == Giovanni Petris
<GPetris@uark.edu>
> > > >>>>> on Mon, 3 Feb 2003 08:36:06 -0600 (CST)
writes:
> > >
> > > Giovanni> Has anybody else experienced something like the
> > > example below?
> > > not recently.
> > > Could it be that your version of the `grid' package (which is
> > > loaded by `lattice') or `lattice' are incompatible (i.e.
older
> > > than) to your R version?
> > > After library(lattice), use
> > > .path.package()
> > > to see where it was loaded from.
> >
> > This brings up (IIRC) a topic that was discussed on R-devel
> a while ago:
> > Version checks for required packages. Is this feasible?
> Seems quite
> > worthwhile to me...
>
> It's not feasible. If package A is upgraded and makes
> package B need an
> upgrade, there is no way for package B's maintainer to
> anticipate this.
> Now one could be conservative and have B require exactly one
> version of A,
> but then upgrading A makes B unusable. (The latter is what
> has happened a
> few times with ghostscript and gsview/windvi.)
Well, I was thinking of only one-way: much like the package requiring R
version >= something, also allow requiring package blah version
>something. Of course, if a new version of package blah has API changes that
breaks the package requiring it, then the maintainer should pay close
attention to the package that he/she is requiring so as to minimize this
from happening...
> I have suggested before that grid be more closely integrated
> with R, and
> become a base package. Then grid would only be changed when
> the R version
> changes, and the critical incompatibility goes away.
Or, I guess, another possibilities is to have lattice/grid become conjoint
twins; i.e., make them into a package bundle.
Andy
>
> Brian
>
> --
> Brian D. Ripley, ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
>
>
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