Good Software Engineering Practice for R Packages

SnB 2025 Short Course
Author
Affiliation

Daniel Sabanés Bové and Jack Talboys

RCONIS

Keywords

rconis, gswep, r, gxp

Welcome to the homepage of the tutorial “Good Software Engineering Practice for R Packages”, part of the SnB 2025 conference in Paris, France. In this course you will learn hands-on skills and tools to engineer reliable R packages. The workshop will be conducted in 3 hours and will be a mix of presentations and exercises. Participants need to be comfortable with writing functions in R and use their own laptops as a prerequisite.

Event Details

This live event will be held on Friday October 10, 2025 14:00 - 17:00 CEST as an in-person tutorial in the Salon de l’Aveyron auditorium, located in Paris Bercy.

Description

Join us for an engaging half-day face-to-face short-course designed to enhance your R programming skills with a focus on developing reliable R packages used in statistics or data science. This course is a blend of informative presentations and hands-on coding parts, aimed at equipping participants with practical tools and techniques for engineering high-quality R packages.

This course is tailored for individuals who are already comfortable with writing functions in R and are looking to elevate their package development skills. Bring your laptop and be prepared to transform your approach to R package development through hands-on learning and collaboration. Whether you’re looking to improve your workflow, meet regulatory standards, or simply enhance the quality of your statistical tools, this course offers valuable insights and skills to achieve your goals.

Learning Outcomes

Learn, understand, and practice good software engineering rules. Participants will delve into the significance of good engineering habits to avoid the pitfalls of maintenance overload, inefficient development, and regulatory non-compliance. By emphasizing best practices, the course will guide them towards faster releases on CRAN, thus saving valuable time on refactoring for PoC to release version transitions. All course materials, including R scripts, will be shared with participants via GitHub, providing easy access to resources for continued learning and application beyond the course.

Schedule

Time Topic
14:00 - 14:15 CEST Introduction and outline
14:15 - 15:00 CEST R packages, what are they? + practical
15:00 - 15:30 CEST Workflow for creating R packages
15:30 - 16:15 CEST R Package quality + exercise
16:15 - 16:45 CEST Publication of R packages
16:45 - 17:00 CEST Conclusion

Prerequisites & Technical Setup

Prior to the course, participants should:

For the course, participants are required to use their own laptop to be able to participate in the exercises.

Optional reading list

Past Events