[Developers] What we need in ADMB

[John Sibert]

Arni -

Have a look at http://admb-project.org/community/libraries/dnorm and 
tell me if you think it is helpful.

John

On 06/17/2010 04:55 PM, Arni Magnusson wrote:
> Good point Mark, this opens a new and exciting chapter for the ADMB 
> Project. I have created a new Plone directory,
>
>   http://admb-project.org/community/libraries
>
> containing Steve Martell's instructions and example.
>
> The R package model is indeed very successful, and was based on the 
> experience of older software projects, such as LaTeX. The R approach 
> goes something like this:
>
> (1) For a package to be accepted, every function must be documented in 
> a standard format, described in the "Writing R Extensions" manual. The 
> R Team provides the service of compiling a user manual (HTML and PDF) 
> from the standard documentation format. Furthermore, package authors 
> should write an example application or two, demonstrating how the 
> function works.
>
> (2) A package gets kicked out of the collection if the example 
> applications crash in the newest version of R, after a few weeks grace 
> period.
>
> (3) Specific functions are occasionally promoted from a user package 
> into one of the base packages. This is rare and only dicussed in 
> "closed meetings".
>
> (4) Most packages focus on a well-defined theme of tasks, but there's 
> also a few PeterMisc and PaulMisc packages around.
>
> We could adopt a similar approach. The standard documentation format 
> would probably use Doxygen, and it should be easy to compile a user 
> manual from that. Our Buildbot could test the example applications.
>
> John Sibert knows Doxygen best, so maybe he can suggest a standard 
> documentation format, with an example of what the corresponding user 
> manual might look like. To keep things simple, we could work from 
> Steve Martell's contribution 
> (http://admb-project.org/community/libraries/example.cpp/view).
>
> Arni
>
>
>
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010, Mark Maunder wrote:
>
>> From the recently sent around R article under why R succeeded:
>>
>> "The package system, introduced early in the life of R, permits 
>> individuals to participate in the development of R without the direct 
>> intervention of the R Core group. In a sense, the package system - 
>> like version control - is a technological solution to a social 
>> problem: how to invite, motivate, and coordinate the activity of 
>> hundreds of volunteers without overwhelming the resources of the Core 
>> team."
>>
>> We need to have a place for user supplied libraries. We need to start 
>> it off by a number of us including our own libraries. Finally, we 
>> need a way to review the libraries, "certify them", then add them to 
>> the core code.
>>
>> Mark
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Developers mailing list
> Developers at admb-project.org
> http://lists.admb-project.org/mailman/listinfo/developers
>

-- 
John Sibert
Emeritus Researcher, SOEST
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Visit the ADMB project http://admb-project.org/