Background

This section provides the conceptual groundwork for understanding why dependency management matters for reproducibility, and how R’s package ecosystem works.

Background at a Glance

The deck below summarizes the main ideas covered in this section. Use the arrow keys or the on-screen controls to navigate, and the fullscreen button to enlarge it.

The chapters themselves are listed below:

  • Reproducibility — What we mean by reproducibility, why code reproducibility matters, and the “works on my machine” problem.
  • Software Dependencies — An introduction to software dependencies and how they complicate the goal of reproducible research.
  • Technical Definitions — Clarifying terminology: packages, libraries, and repositories in the R ecosystem.
  • R Package Managers — How R packages are distributed through CRAN, Bioconductor, GitHub, and other sources.

If you’re already comfortable with these concepts, feel free to jump straight to the {renv} section.

Back to top