GermaParl v1.5.1 ‘Drunken Sailor’ Released

The GermaParl package is back at CRAN. The most recent version (v1.5.1) that has just been released is the first one I expect to pass all checks on all systems. If nothing goes wrong, it will be the first fully portable version of the GermaParl R package.

Following the formular ‘less is more’ has been a precondition for that. I guess the song “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor” is widely known: How do you get somebody, who has enjoyed too much previously sober again? Metaphorically, this is what GermaParl has gone through now. Functions to add further annotation layers were actually quite generic have been removed from the GermaParl package, they have been moved to the (GitHub-only) package polmineR.misc. Remaining dependencies on the data.table and the RcppCWB package have also been removed.

The GermaParl package still offers the documentation of the data and a very convenient download mechanism for the full GermaParl corpus. That’s one rationale for the CRAN release. But more importantly from a technical point of view, it includes some sample data. A next step will be to use the sample data included in the GermaParl package in the polmineR package, which can thus be turned a leaner package.

And GermaParl is a much leaner package now, too. GermaParl is not a drunken sailor any more with a terrible hangover (superfluous functions and dependencies). As I believe, the package is quite sober now. Enjoy!