Maëlle Salmon

We strive for high quality in [our suite of packages](/packages/), in
practice via a [system of software peer review](/software-review/), and
via [packaging guidelines that keep
growing](https://devguide.ropensci.org/). There is therefore a risk of
increasing the workload of package authors, who already have a lot on
their plate. To avoid that, when explaining how to do things in our dev
guide, we recommend existing automated tools to authors.

> The usethis package implements this important principle: Automate that
> which can be automated. Your computer was literally born to implement
> rote-but-fussy stuff for you. <https://t.co/OfIUzSBlc7>
>
> --- Jenny Bryan (@JennyBryan) [November 28,
> 2017](https://twitter.com/JennyBryan/status/935562495816753153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Inspired by [the usethis package](https://usethis.r-lib.org/), we've
started work on our specific helpers for rOpenSci package authors,
[rodev](https://docs.ropensci.org/rodev/). In this note, we'll present
some of the helpers it contains at the moment, and ask for your feedback
as an rOpenSci package author.

## Setup and scope

To use rodev, you'll need to install it from GitHub,

::: {.highlight}
``` {.chroma tabindex="0"}
remotes::install_github("ropenscilabs/rodev")
```
:::

and then, go to the package project you want to test it on. Indeed,
rodev works on the active project [as defined by
usethis](https://usethis.r-lib.org/#usage).

At the moment, [rodev functions are divided into four categories in the
pkgdown website
reference](https://docs.ropensci.org/rodev/reference/index.html). In
this post, we will not reproduce this classification, but hope you'll
refer to the online reference too!

## Helper for badges

We recommend, and therefore rodev facilitates, the use of
[repostatus.org badges](https://www.repostatus.org/) via
[`use_repostatus_badge()`](https://docs.ropensci.org/rodev/reference/use_repostatus_badge.html),
that calls
[`usethis::use_badge()`](https://usethis.r-lib.org/reference/badges.html).
At a minimum `rodev::use_repostatus_badge("wip")` will paste the
Markdown code of the badge to your clipboard, but as a reminder from
`usethis` docs "To add badges automatically ensure your badge block
starts with a line containing only `` and ends
with a line containing only ``." To see what
statuses are available, you can call `rodev::repostatus_badges()`
that'll output a `data.frame`.

Another badge we help authors adding, if their software is under /
underwent review, is a peer-review badge, via
`rodev::use_review_badge()` that takes the software review issue number
as an argument. E.g. the peer-review badge of the [`tradestatistics`
package](https://docs.ropensci.org/tradestatistics/) uses the number 274
because it was reviewed in [issue
274](https://github.com/ropensci/onboarding/issues/274).

## One-liner for collaboration friendliness

To foster collaboration-friendliness of repos, we have templates for
issues, PRs and CONTRIBUTING.md. Such files need to live in a .github/
folder. Package authors can get our templates by running
`rodev::use_ro_github()` and voilà! the package has a .github/ folder
ready to be committed and pushed.

## DESCRIPTION tweaking

We've been thinking about asking authors of peer-reviewed packages to
add a mention of rOpenSci in the Description of their package
DESCRIPTION (this sentence is case-sensitive!). We haven't added this to
our guidance yet, but if/when we do, `rodev::add_ro_desc()` will add the
sentence "This package has been peer-reviewed by rOpenSci (v.
`{version}`)." to the Description, with `version` automatically replaced
by the package current version.

For rOpenSci staff members, rOpenSci is a *funder* of their work so they
can run `rodev::add_ro_fnd()` to add rOpenSci as an author in
DESCRIPTION.

## Conclusion

In this note we briefly presented rodev, a package of helpers for
rOpenSci package authors. Its contents, and the behavior of some
functions, are expected to change when our guidelines do. Our goal is to
add rodev functions in our dev guide. Speaking of our guidance,
`rodev::read_pkg_guide()` will open our online packaging guide in a
browser! Also note that we've just added a changelog to the package --
via `usethis::use_news_md()`, so evolutions will be tracked!

Do some of [rodev
helpers](https://docs.ropensci.org/rodev/reference/index.html) sound
helpful? Do they work as expected? Do you have some feature requests?
Head to [rodev issue
tracker](https://github.com/ropenscilabs/rodev/issues), we'd be glad to
improve the package and ultimately your experience as the author of an
rOpenSci package.

We strive for high quality in our suite of packages, in practice via a system of software peer review, and via packaging guidelines that keep growing. There is therefore a risk of increasing the workload of package authors, who already have a lot on their plate. To avoid that, when explaining how to do things in our dev guide, we recommend existing automated tools to authors.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

rodev: helpers for rOpenSci package authors