evolve R packages related to SS3 to ease installation and streamline/modularize/consolidate

[Rick-Methot-NOAA]

The recent discussion on ASPM leads me to think about the generic category of workflows to run ss3. Some things that fall into this category are:

• R program to manage a single ss3 run
• SSS and variants
• SSMSE
• SSI
• ASPM
• R program to manage and organize a large set of ss3 runs

Some of the above is found within r4ss, some is standalone, and some is bespoke. Does it make sense to organize them to a greater degree? SSI and SSMSE would be standalone, but referred to. Could rest be consolidated into one package? Has Carruthers already done something like that inside DLMTools?

[k-doering-NOAA]

Thanks, Rick! You are right, there is a lot of code doing different tasks that runs ss3.

I think in general, any code that doesn't fall into ss3sim and SSMSE goes into r4ss. (well, and some in ss3diags).

I'm sure Chantel knows more about SSS and others , but I think all of the simple SS3 type programs is being consolidated for use with 1 gui

One change that might make sense is using diagnostic workflows to ss3diags, instead or r4ss. I think this could be helpful.

One other comment Kelli made was about having a ss3 "universe" r package (like tidyverse), which would allow users to download and use all of the ss3 related r packages at once. Perhaps this could help consolidate them?

[Rick-Methot-NOAA]

Kelli's comment is similar in concept to what I was thinking. Then over time can streamline/modularize/consolidate

[k-doering-NOAA]

Some links for R packages that really just load a bunch of R packages: tidyverse and assertive.

It looks like this is pretty simple to set up

[Rick-Methot-NOAA]

OK. I see no high priority for work on this and just would encourage further evolution of tools in this direction.

[iantaylor-NOAA]

I just moved this issue over from the workflows repository and changed the title to better reflect the content of the conversation.

I think that a single package R package that installs all of the various SS3-related R packages as well as the SS3 executable would be really useful and am happy to help with that after finishing assessment work this summer.

[e-perl-NOAA]

On this topic, one of my ideas was try to get a codespace that contains admb, ss3, and associated r packages. This will be a slow process though as I get familiar with codespaces and my attempt to get admb and ss3 on a codespace today is failing.

[k-doering-NOAA]

Great idea @iantaylor-NOAA ! That reminds me of the devtools, which pulls in functions from other packages.

@e-gugliotti-NOAA let me know if you want to work on the codespaces more - I'm sure it is possible to figure out but may take some debugging!