Package Manager 1.1.0 - No Interruptions
By Sean Lopp - 2019-11-07
No interruptions. That was our team’s goal for RStudio Package Manager 1.1.0 - we set out to make R package installation fast enough that it wouldn’t interrupt your work. More and more data scientists use Linux environments, whether to access extra horsepower during development or to run production code in containers. Unfortunately, the rise in Linux environments has seen a corresponding increase in package installation pain. For Windows and Mac OS, CRAN provides pre-compiled binary packages that install almost instantly, but the same binaries are not available on Linux. As a result, data scientists can lose their train of thought, or put off trying out a new method, all because they have to wait for new packages to compile and install. New users often face a tedious hour-long setup process before they can try out environments. IT/DevOps engineers are forced to wait any time they want to build a new image, deploy to production, or restore an environment.
RStudio Package Manager already makes it easy for an organization to control and distribute R packages. Now, packages from CRAN can be immediately available for deployment on Linux systems, through Linux package binaries. These binaries install significantly faster and are available to all Package Manager clients wherever your organization uses R. Binaries are supported for a range of R versions and platforms, for more than 80% of CRAN packages, and they are updated every week! Binaries make it easier for users to get started, simpler for admins to manage environments, and make it dramatically easier to implement automation.