Friendly reminder to choose your dependencies carefully. It may seem like package snapshots (e.g. docker, packrat in #rstats) solve the problem, but they often make it more painful when you eventually need to upgrade.
XKCD Comic @xkcdComic
4 Nov 2019
Software Updates xkcd.com/2224/ m.xkcd.com/2224/
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Yeah, the only sustainable solution is to stay up-to-date & adjust code. In this vein: A known dept on a famous uni used to have commands 'latex' and 'latex-new'; 'latex' pointed to an ancient TeX version bc some processor didn't like the new LaTeX. Just saying
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Agreed, you have to stay up to date. You don't want to be in a position where you need to upgrade quickly (e.g. due to a security issue). So you should be comfortable with the frequency of (breaking) changes in your dependencies.
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Replying to @joshua_ulrich @henrikbengtsson
Or, and that needs to be said and repeated, lack of breaking changes! CRAN *really* is just simply fantastically reliable here. I have been updating (nearly) daily for maybe a decade or longer and things just don't break if you choose your package stack wisely.

Nov 6, 2019 · 7:36 PM UTC
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