Maintaining an R Package

March 2020 rOpenSci Community Call

Transcript

1. M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E
2. TECHNICAL M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E SOCIAL  
3. GOOD QUESTIONS M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E • Who uses this package? • Who originally wrote this package? • How much can this package change? • What happens “next”?
4. SOFTWARE CONTRIBUTIONS M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E Having more than one maintainer is rare. Avelino, Guilherme, et al. "Assessing code authorship: The case of the Linux kernel." IFIP International Conference on Open Source Systems. Springer, Cham, 2017.
5. M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E • Casual contributors are common • Long tail of small contributions • Roughly half of contributors responsible for ~2% of commits • Typos, bugs, new features, refactoring Pinto, Gustavo, Igor Steinmacher, and Marco Aurélio Gerosa. "More common than you think: An in-depth study of casual contributors." 2016 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER). Vol. 1. IEEE, 2016.
6. https://nadiaeghbal.com/user-support M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E
7. https://nadiaeghbal.com/user-support M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E
8. E N C O U R A G I N G C O N T R I B U T O R S
9. M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E Steinmacher, Igor, et al. "Overcoming Social Barriers When Contributing to Open Source Software Projects." Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 28.1-2 (2019): 247-290. • Include and enforce CoC • Be kind & respectful • Communicate future plans (roadmap?)
10. M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E • Keep knowledge up to date & findable • Develop forms of legitimate peripheral participation • Make it easy for newcomers to get started • Acknowledge all contributions • Follow up on both success & failure Sholler, Dan, et al. "Ten simple rules for helping newcomers become contributors to open projects." PLoS Computational Biology 15.9 (2019).
11. PANELISTS M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E RStudio JULIA SILGE Uncommon Schools ERIN GRAND Lieber Institute for Brain Development LEONARDO COLLADO-TORRES Lehman College, CUNY ELIN WARING 11 rOpenSci SCOTT CHAMBERLAIN
12. THANK YOU M A I N T A I N I N G A N R P A C K A G E Special thanks to Scott Chamberlain for sharing research on software contributions Photos by Plush Design Studio and Raul Varzar on Unsplash