Re: [Gretl-devel] A way to read RData files in gretl

On Wed, 27 Sep 2017, Allin Cottrell wrote:

>> reconsider the policy that gretl function packages must not depend on >> R. R has become so widespread, and also we have in gretl the very >> nice possibility to define and call your own R functions directly >> (see section 38.7 of the user guide), that it almost seems silly not >> to leverage all the potential. Even Eviews has been doing it for a >> while already. > > I agree; I'd be OK with gretl packages that depend on R -- provided > that what they do really requires R, it's not something that can be > done without too much difficulty using native gretl commands or > functions. Ok, I hear what you say. However, I'm not too keen on the idea that someone downloads a package, watches it fail because R is not installed and concludes that "gretl sucks". What if we added a flag to the package properties ("needs_R" or similar), and then we forbid installation of the package if R is not on the system, with an appropriately prominent error message? That would be rather easy to do, and prevent misunderstandings.