What to do with imperfect-but-useful functions?

Question

I could equally have titled this question, "Is it good enough for CRAN?"

I have a collection of functions that I've built up for specific tasks. Some of these are convenience functions:

# Returns odds/evens from a vector
odds=function(vec) {
    stopifnot(class(vec)=="integer")
    ret = vec[fpart(vec/2)!=0]
    ret
}
evens=function(vec) {
    stopifnot(class(vec)=="integer")
    ret = vec[fpart(vec/2)==0]
    ret
}

Some are minor additions that have proven useful in answering common SO question:

# Shift a vector over by n spots
# wrap adds the entry at the beginning to the end
# pad does nothing unless wrap is false, in which case it specifies whether to pad with NAs
shift <- function(vec,n=1,wrap=TRUE,pad=FALSE) {
    if(length(vec)<abs(n)) { 
        #stop("Length of vector must be greater than the magnitude of n \n") 
    }
    if(n==0) { 
        return(vec) 
    } else if(length(vec)==n) { 
        # return empty
        length(vec) <- 0
        return(vec)
    } else if(n>0) {
        returnvec <- vec[seq(n+1,length(vec) )]
        if(wrap) {
            returnvec <- c(returnvec,vec[seq(n)])
        } else if(pad) {
            returnvec <- c(returnvec,rep(NA,n))
        }
    } else if(n<0) {
        returnvec <- vec[seq(1,length(vec)-abs(n))]
        if(wrap) {
            returnvec <- c( vec[seq(length(vec)-abs(n)+1,length(vec))], returnvec )
        } else if(pad) {
            returnvec <- c( rep(NA,abs(n)), returnvec )
        }

    }
    return(returnvec)
}

The most important are extensions to existing classes that can't be found anywhere else (e.g. a CDF panel function for lattice plots, various xtable and LaTeX output functions, classes for handling and converting between geospatial object types and performing various GIS-like operations such as overlays).

I would like to make these available somewhere on the internet in R-ized form (e.g. posting them on a blog as plain text functions is not what I'm looking for), so that maintenance is easier and so that I and others can access them from any computer that I go to. The logical thing to do is to make a package out of them and post them to CRAN--and indeed I already have them packaged up. But is this collection of functions suitable for a CRAN package?

I have two main concerns:

1. The functions don't seem to have any coherent overlay. It's just a collection of functions that do lots of different things.
2. My code isn't always the prettiest. I've tried to clean it up as I learned better coding practices, but producing R Core-worthy beautiful code is not in the cards.

The CRAN webpage is surprisingly bereft of guidelines on posting. Should I post to CRAN, given that some people will find it useful but that it will in some sense forever lock R into having some pretty basic function names taken up? Or is there another place I can use an install.packages-like command to install from? Note I'd rather avoid posting the package to a webpage and having people have to memorize the URL to install the package (not least for version control issues).

Answer 1

I would use http://r-forge.r-project.org/. From the top of the page:

R-Forge offers a central platform for the development of R packages, R-related software and further projects. It is based on FusionForge offering easy access to the best in SVN, daily built and checked packages, mailing lists, bug tracking, message boards/forums, site hosting, permanent file archival, full backups, and total web-based administration.