cmmid/covid-uk

Distribute Covidm as a package?

markgdawson opened this issue · 2 comments

Hi, hope you're all well.

I'm interested in the "core" covidm code that you've shared as part of this repository. Would you be interested in seeing the "guts" of this code shared as a stand-alone R package?

I've made a start at making this a stand-alone package. This is still a work in progress, and may not work seamlessly on any machines quite yet. I have a version of the UK.R script (with some minor tweaks) that is standalone bar a "library(covidm)" call at the top of the script. I'm also happy to share this if you like.

As someone interested in using and extending your code, it would be nice to see a definitive version of this "core" available as an R package, so that it's easy to write software that use it.

Do you think that using, developing and distributing this code as a package is an approach that you would be interested in adopting?

I understand if you're time is constrained. If time it is the limitation, I'm happy to act as a maintainer for the package for the time being. Having said that, I would also be more than happy to hand it over and fork your copy if you have the time and inclination to maintain it yourselves.

I expect this approach could encourage others to build (hopefully) sophisticated tooling around the excellent work you've already done.

It might be idealist in me speaking, but it would be nice if everyone interested was able to contribute to a common code base, and share the latest and greatest changes/developments.

The package I've started building can be found here: https://github.com/M4rkD/covidm

As I noted, it is a work in progress, but I don't think it's far from complete.

I'm more than happy for the work in M4rkD/covidm to be used as a basis for other versions as a package, or I'm more than happy to help repeat the same process on updated versions of the code.

I'll drop you a note by email, if you don't mind, so that you have a point of contact.