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Statistical Software for Psychology: Comparing Development Practices Between CRAN and Other Communities.

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Authors
Spencer Smith, Yue Sun, Jacques Carette

Different communities rely heavily on software, but use quite differentsoftware development practices. {\bf Objective}: We wanted to measure the stateof the practice in the area of statistical software for psychology tounderstand how it compares to best practices. {\bf Method}: We compared andranked 30 software tools with respect to adherence to best software engineeringpractices on items that could be measured by end-users. {\bf Results} We foundthat R packages use quite good practices, that while commercial packages werequite usable, many aspects of their development is too opaque to be measures,and that research projects vary a lot in their practices. {\bf Conclusion} Werecommend that more organizations adopt practices similar to those used by CRANto facilitate success, even for small teams. We also recommend close couplingof source code and documentation, to improve verifiability.

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