6 Conclusion

R/Pharma workshop: Good Software Engineering Practice for R Packages

Daniel Sabanés Bové

October 28, 2024

Your Learnings

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• What new skill did you learn in today’s workshop?

Take away messages

R package structure

• R package = folder structure with (many) conventions
• With modern tools usethis, roxygen2 it is easy to start a new package
• Packaging a set of functions is an ideal way to share with collaborators and the public
• Start small and simple and over time you can learn additional options

Engineering Workflow

• Use a workable workflow:
  Idea \(\rightarrow\) Design docs \(\rightarrow\) Programming \(\rightarrow\) Quality check \(\rightarrow\) Publication
  • Don’t waste time on maintenance
  • Be faster with release on CRAN
  • Fulfill quality requirements of yourself and stakeholders
• Refactor your one-off scripts that you want to use in a package
• Use assertions for all arguments \(\rightarrow\) better user experience
• Implement common generics like print and plot

Ensuring Quality

• Apply common clean code rules, e.g.,
  • Use testthat to test, test, and test
  • Use covr to improve the test coverage
  • Use styler to optimize the code styling
  • Don’t repeat yourself!
• Your rewards are:
  • Maintainability,
  • Extensibility, and
  • Performance!

Publication

• pkgdown can help you easily create a nice website for your package
• Versions and licenses along with NEWS updates are important
• GitHub helps with tagging of release versions
• R-Hub helps with checking before CRAN submission

Closing remarks

Thank you!

• It was great to teach you today on how to build R packages
• Let’s keep in touch e.g. via LinkedIn or GitHub
• We welcome feedback on topics/format/content - reach out!

Possible next steps

• Bring the information back to your colleagues in your organization
• Start building your first own package and share internally first
• Later publish it open source on GitHub and submit it to CRAN
• Learn about more tips and tricks how to extend R

Photo by Pixabay on pexels.com

License information

• Creators (initial authors): Daniel Sabanes Bove

• This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

• The source files are hosted at github.com/openpharma/workshop-r-swe-rinpharma-2024, which is forked from the original version at github.com/RCONIS/user2024-tutorial-gswep.

• Important: To use this work you must provide the name of the creators (initial authors), a link to the material, a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made