Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions
The author discusses the rapid increase in new R packages being submitted to CRAN, suggesting that the ease of software deployment has led to an overwhelming volume of submissions. The article uses data visualization to highlight this trend and draws parallels to the broader explosion of applications in the current AI era.
Why it matters
It highlights the sustainability challenges of open-source repositories as software development becomes increasingly accessible and automated.
If you are reading this post on R-bloggers , you will probably know that I have been publishing my selection of the “Top 40” new R packages on CRAN for quite some time. I did this first as part of my work at Revolution Analytics, then on R Views for RStudio and Posit, and now here on R Works. It used to take about a day’s worth of pleasurable work spread out over a month to select forty interesting packages. For a hundred or so packages, I could look at all of the package webpages, download and play with a small number of them. Now, the “Top 40” has become a real hamster-on-the-wheel project. The following plot shows my count of the number of new packages to make it to CRAN since I began publishing on R Works.
The article is a technical observation based on data and personal experience without political or ideological framing.
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