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Dear rOpenSci friends, it’s time for our monthly news roundup!
You can read this post on our blog.
Now let’s dive into the activity at and around rOpenSci!
rOpenSci HQ
Announcing New Software Peer Review Editors: Beatriz Milz and Margaret Siple
We are excited to welcome Beatriz Milz and Margaret Siple to our team of Associate Editors for rOpenSci Software Peer Review. They join Laura DeCicco, Julia Gustavsen, Anna Krystalli, Mauro Lepore, Noam Ross, Maëlle Salmon, Emily Riederer, Adam Sparks, and Jeff Hollister.
Meet Beatriz and Margaret in their introduction blog post.
Welcome on board to you both, thank you for your service!
A fresh new look for R-universe!
You might have noticed that R-universe got a big refresh. 
Read all about this big overhaul of the interface.
Resources from the rOpenSci community at useR! 2024
While some video recordings have not yet been posted on the useR! YouTube channel, some slidedecks and materials are already available.
- Maëlle Salmon’s keynote talk “How your code might get rusty” (Slides | Recording)
- Jeroen Ooms’ talk “Navigating the R Ecosystem Using R-Universe” (Slides)
- Jon Harmon’s virtual talk “Learning Together at the Data Science Learning Community”
- Paola Corrales and Elio Campitelli’s tutorial “Efficient Data Analysis with data.table” (Website)
- Elio Campitelli’s talk “Building Bilingual Bridges with Multilingual Manuals” (Slides)
- Hugo Gruson’s
- Lluís Revilla and Henrik Bengtsson’s poster about CRAN packages archived and the cranhaven.org R-universe created to reduce the impact of that on users
- Will Landau and Charlie Gao’s talk “Moju-Kapu: How {Mirai} and {Crew} Are Powering the Next Generation of Parallel Computing in R” (Slides)
- Binod Jung Bogati’s talks
Coworking
Read all about coworking!
Join us for social coworking & office hours monthly on first Tuesdays!
Hosted by Steffi LaZerte and various community hosts.
Everyone welcome.
No RSVP needed.
Consult our Events page to find your local time and how to join.
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Tuesday, August 6th, 9:00 America Pacific (16:00 UTC), Building your first R package with cohost Carolina Pradier and Steffi LaZerte.
- Explore how to make R packages
- Plan out that package you’ve always wanted to create
- Chat with our cohost about tips and tricks for making your first R package
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Tuesday, September 3rd, 9:00 Australia Western (01:00 UTC), Theme TBA with cohost TBA and Steffi LaZerte.
And remember, you can always cowork independently on work related to R, work on packages that tend to be neglected, or work on what ever you need to get done!
Software 
New packages
The following package recently became a part of our software suite:
- osmapiR, developed by Joan Maspons: Interface to OpenStreetMap API for fetching and saving data from/to the OpenStreetMap database (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6). It is available on CRAN. It has been reviewed by Jon Harmon and Carlos Cámara.
Discover more packages, read more about Software Peer Review.
New versions
The following nine packages have had an update since the last newsletter: rotemplate (pkgdown-2.0.9), gitignore (v0.1.7), nodbi (v0.10.5), nuts (v1.1.0), occCite (v0.5.7), osmapiR (v0.1.0), phonfieldwork (v0.0.16), taxlist (v0.3.0), and waywiser (v0.6.0).
Software Peer Review
There are eleven recently closed and active submissions and 6 submissions on hold. Issues are at different stages:
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One at ‘6/approved’:
- osmapiR, OpenStreetMap API. Submitted by Joan Maspons.
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Four at ‘4/review(s)-in-awaiting-changes’:
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chopin, CHOPIN: Computation for Climate and Health research On Parallelized INfrastructure. Submitted by Insang Song.
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cancerprof, API Client for State Cancer Profiles. Submitted by Brian Park.
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rix, Rix: Reproducible Environments with Nix. Submitted by Bruno Rodrigues.
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agromet, Índices y Estadísticos Climáticos e Hidrológicos. Submitted by Paola Corrales.
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Four at ‘3/reviewer(s)-assigned’:
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eDNAjoint, Joint Modeling of Traditional and Environmental DNA Survey Data. Submitted by Abigail Keller.
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rsi, Efficiently Retrieve and Process Satellite Imagery. Submitted by Michael Mahoney.
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sits, Satellite Image Time Series Analysis for Earth Observation Data Cubes. Submitted by Gilberto Camara.
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fwildclusterboot, Fast Wild Cluster Bootstrap Inference for Linear Models. Submitted by Alexander Fischer. (Stats).
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One at ‘2/seeking-reviewer(s)’:
- QuadratiK, A Collection of Methods Using Kernel-Based Quadratic Distances for. Submitted by Giovanni Saraceno. (Stats).
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One at ‘1/editor-checks’:
- gigs, Assess Fetal, Newborn, and Child Growth with International Standards. Submitted by Simon Parker. (Stats).
Find out more about Software Peer Review and how to get involved.
On the blog
Software Review
- Announcing New Software Peer Review Editors: Beatriz Milz and Margaret Siple by Mark Padgham, Beatriz Milz, and Margaret Siple. Introducing two new editors for rOpenSci software review.
Other topics
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Multilingual Documentation in R Packages by Elio Campitelli. Multilingual documentation coming to an R package near you. Other languages: Documentación multilingüe en paquetes de R (es).
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rOpenSci Community Collaboration Insight Using Social Networks Analysis by Yanina Bellini Saibene and Sandro Camargo. In this blog post we present how we have used Social Network Analysis with R, to better understand and manage the rOpenSci community.
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Metrics, Impact and Community Management by Yanina Bellini Saibene. Our community manager Yani, shares experiences using multi-level metrics and participation models through a community management lens to measure rOpenSci impact.
Use cases
Three use cases of our packages and resources have been reported recently.
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Using {weatherOz} to Plot Perth’s May High Temperatures. Reported by Adam Sparks.
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OAI interface request, response, and data download with R. Reported by Jörg Lehmann.
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Translating Carpentries workbench lessons with babeldown. Reported by Hugo Gruson.
Explore other use cases and report your own!
Calls for contributions
Calls for maintainers
If you’re interested in maintaining any of the R packages below, you might enjoy reading our blog post What Does It Mean to Maintain a Package?.
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historydata, datasets for historians. Issue for volunteering.
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USAboundaries (and USAboundariesdata), historical and contemporary boundaries of the United States of America . Issue for volunteering.
Calls for contributions
Also refer to our help wanted page – before opening a PR, we recommend asking in the issue whether help is still needed.
Package development corner
Some useful tips for R package developers. 
Last call: your opinion on the CRAN submission process!
Shared by Lluís Revilla and Heather Turner in our Slack workspace, a crucial survey ending today!
“If you have R package development experience and would like to share your thoughts on the CRAN submission process, please fill this short survey from the CRAN Cookbook project!”
Please find the Google form and read more about the exciting cookbook project in this post by Jasmine Daly.
Robust type-checking with r-lib
Don’t miss this insightful short post by Josiah Parry, “Type safe(r) R code”.
A related older blog post is “Checking the inputs of your R functions” by Hugo Gruson, Sam Abbott, Carl Pearson.
The one with all the useR! links
The useR! 2024 conference featured quite a few talks relevant to package development, beside the talks we mentioned in the HQ section.
Not all recordings are available yet, but make sure to check out the useR! YouTube channel.
If we missed any relevant content, please get in touch so we might add missing pieces to our next newsletter!
Retrospectives
Kurt Hornik and Torsten Hothorn gave keynote talks “More than 25 years of CRAN” (Slides) and “Some things you can’t read from
a NEWS file” (Slides | Recording) about maintaining a package for decades.
Edzer Pebesma and Roger Bivand reported on “The Retirement of R Packages with Many Reverse Dependencies” (Slides).
On validation of R packages
Coline Zeballos and Yann Féhat from the R Validation Hub discussed how to support (pharma) companies with validation of R Packages (Slides). They use a toolset based on r-hub/repos and the riskmetric package.
Szymon Maksymiuk and Lorenzo Braschi presented a Deep Dive Into Industry R
Package Quality Assessment. Beside introducing the concepts, they mentioned three open-source R packages that they created: checked for running reverse dependencies checks; covtracer for contextualizing tests using covr test traces; rd2markdown for converting .Rd files into Markdown.
Also on reverse dependencies checks, Pawel Rucki and André Veríssimo presented
{verdepcheck} – A Tool for Dependencies Check (Slides | Package Docs).
Franciszek Walkowiak discussed Systems Integration Tests for R Package Cohorts, including the introductions to two open-source utilities, scribe that creates complete build, check and install reports for a collection of R projects and locksmith that helps with renv.lock creation (Slides).
On good practice
Daniel Sabanés Bové introduced openstatsware’s work on minimal viable good practice standards for R packages.
Pedro Silva listed Seven Deadly Sins Holding You
Back as a Software Developer (Slides).
Hugo Gruson had a poster on A reproducible analysis of CRAN Task Views to understand the state of an R package ecosystem. See the live analysis.
On learning with silly projects
Fonti Kar shared her experience in creating {ohwhaley} – a ‘toy’ R package which serves as a tool for learning package development and upskilling new learners (Slides).
On package design
Hugo Gruson highlighted the benefits of using S3 classes for interoperability in Existing Software Ecosystems (Slides).
See also his recent blog posts on the topic.
Ligia Adamska used an onion analogy to explain Layered Design for R Package
Development: Meeting the Needs of
Pharmaceutical R&D Stakeholders (Slides).
On tools
Daphne Grasselly, Franciszek Walkowiak and Pawel Rucki lead a tutorial on Streamlining R package
development with GitHub Actions
Workflows (Slides).
Emil Hvitfeldt explained how to make better error messages with rlang and cli.
Ella Kaye shared her insights on C for R users (Slides).
Davis Vaughan introduced tree-sitter, an efficient incremental parsing library and the R package treesitter, which provides bindings to tree-sitter whose README states “tree-sitter is useful for a number of things, including syntax highlighting, go-to definition, code reshaping, and more.”
On multilingualism
Elio Campitelli spoke about Building Bilingual Bridges
with Multilingual Manuals (Slides). See also their post on our blog!
On debugging
Shannon Pileggi delivered a tutorial on debugging in R (Materials).
Antoine Fabri gave an overview of the motivations behind, and features of, his constructive package, which, among other things, can be useful for troubleshooting (Package docs).
On wrapping APIs
Hadley Wickham introduced and demo-ed his httr2 package (Package docs).
Simon Haller explained the Automated Generation
of R Client Packages for RESTful APIs (Slides). See also Jon Harmon’s work on the same topic.
On a last resort for archived CRAN packages
Henrik Bengtsson and Lluís Revilla had a poster about their CRANhaven project, a backup solution for end-users when a package falls of CRAN (and which is built using R-universe!).
Last words
Thanks for reading! If you want to get involved with rOpenSci, check out our Contributing Guide that can help direct you to the right place, whether you want to make code contributions, non-code contributions, or contribute in other ways like sharing use cases.
You can also support our work through donations.
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Continue reading: rOpenSci News Digest, July 2024
Analysis of rOpenSci’s Monthly Updates
The updates from rOpenSci in July 2024 encompass a range of topics, from new software peer review editors and updates to software packages to coworking events and the application of rOpenSci’s packages. The implications of these updates are numerous and extend to a broad field, primarily benefiting R developers and users.
New Software Peer Review Editors
The announcement of Beatriz Milz and Margaret Siple as new Associate Editors for rOpenSci Software Peer Review projects a future where there is an expanded expertise to ensure the robustness of open-source software for scientific research. As these two further contribute their perspectives and skills to the team, we can anticipate more diversified and quality software tools for the open science community.
Advice
For potential software contributors to rOpenSci, ensure your submissions are well-documented and robust. This aids the review process and contributes to the overall quality of the rOpenSci ecosystem.
R-universe Upgrade
The refresh of the R-universe interface suggests an ongoing commitment to improving user experience. Future developments may include additional interface features to facilitate navigation and access to a wealth of R packages.
Advice
Users should take time to familiarize themselves with the new layout and features. For contributors, consider how to optimize package listing and description for improved visibility and user understanding in the new interface.
Community Participation and Events
rOpenSci’s commitment to community engagement is highlighted by the number of events organized and the diversity of topics covered. These include coworking sessions, tutorials, and talks at the useR! 2024 conference. Future developments may entail more sessions geared towards addressing community needs and knowledge gaps.
Advice
Keep an eye on upcoming events and participate actively. Offering feedback and suggestions for new topics could also form part of the community contribution.
Software Updates
The announcement of new packages and updated versions illustrates a continuously evolving software repository. With the inclusion of the osmapiR package, developers and users now have a handy tool for interfacing with the OpenStreetMap API. Expect ongoing evolution of this ecosystem as developers address user needs.
Advice
Stay updated on the latest package updates and consider integrating new and updated packages into your scientific research routines if they fit into your data analysis strategy.
On the Blog
Topics ranging from software reviews, multilingual documentation, community collaborations to the use of social network analysis for managing the digital community are discussed. These resources potentially contribute to improving the understanding and utilization of rOpenSci’s tools.
Advice
Read and engage with rOpenSci’s blog posts to stay informed regarding the latest trends and best practices in the use of R for scientific research.
Concluding Remarks
The long-term implications of these updates from rOpenSci are an increasingly robust and diverse set of open-source tools for scientific research. For potential software contributors, this means a welcoming and supportive infrastructure for producing and refining quality research tools. For users, expect an expanding repertoire of tools tailored to your research needs, paired with the presence of a dynamic and supportive community.
Staying active within the community, whether by contributing code, participating in events, or engaging with blog content, is the best way to maximize the benefits from this evolving ecosystem.