ar-puuk / design

Tidyverse design principles

A place to document (and hash out) development principles for packages in the tidyverse.

A complement to http://style.tidyverse.org.

Structure

Title should be a command. Keep it as short as possible, and frame it positively (which you should do, not what you shouldn't do).

Sections:

• What's the pattern? Brief description and why it's important.

• What are some examples? Bulleted list of existing functions. Can be both positive and negative examples. Show results of code where useful. Goal is to include enough variety that everyone recognises at least one function, and can look up the docs for the details of the others.

• What are the exceptions?

• How to avoid/remediate/use it? Detailed explanation (with example) of how to prevent the problem, fix the problem, and/or use the pattern.

• See also. Include related problems as bulleted list.

Case studies are useful for functions that need more explanation, have multiple problems, or need greater discussion of different trade-offs.