I encountered this a few months ago and, in my case, the sentence had a noun and
verb but lacked a period at the end of the sentence. I tested that 'blah
blah blah.' would have passed in that version of R-devel.
Whenever I find a new rule or test with R CMD check, I tell myself that it must
be there because of some previous issue, i.e. they probably had a good reason. I
can't imagine what damage an incomplete sentence caused beyond a bruised
aura.
> On Jul 4, 2015, at 1:41 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at
gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 04/07/2015 12:26 AM, Rolf Turner wrote:
>>> 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.
>
> There's often a difference between a requirement and the test for it.
> If you meet the requirement, you should pass the test, but you can often
> pass the test without meeting the requirement, and then you may find
> that the test is improved in a later version. (Requirements may also be
> changed, of course.)
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
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