Remove deprecated loadRcppModules (closes #1415)

[eddelbuettel]

This PR removes the R file defining loadRcppModules() along with all documentation references to this long-deprecated function. Shrinking the package surface for once!

Draft for the two or so days the reverse dependencies will noodle over this. Flipped the bit to normal as the reverse depends check is progressing nicely.

Checklist

• Code compiles correctly
• R CMD check still passes all tests
• Preferably, new tests were added which fail without the change
• Document the changes by file in ChangeLog

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[eddelbuettel]

This change is coming up with a small repercussion: old(er) package rncl has an unused (!!) importFrom(Rcpp, loadRcppModules). I already sent a PR; as the package is used in a quite a few more we have a bit of an intersection with Rcpp:

> db <- tools::CRAN_package_db()
> rdrncl <- data.table(Package = tools::package_dependencies("rncl", reverse=TRUE, recursive=TRUE, db=db)[[1]])
> rdrcpp <- data.table(Package = tools::package_dependencies("Rcpp", reverse=TRUE, recursive=TRUE, db=db)[[1]])
> rdrcpp[rdrncl, on="Package"][, Package]
 [1] "CommEcol"      "phylobase"     "rotl"          "bivariatemaps" "adephylo"     
 [6] "adiv"          "DAISIEprep"    "ddtlcm"        "nodeSub"       "PCPS"         
[11] "phyext2"       "phylocanvas"   "phylosem"      "phylosignal"   "phyloTop"     
[16] "taxize"        "adespatial"    "EcoCleanR"     "taxotools"     "OCNet"        
[21] "eDITH"         "rivnet"       
> 

[eddelbuettel]

Oh, but it looks otherwise fine. Can you review please, now that I flipped it to normal non-draft? Rev.dep check will be done later today.

[Enchufa2]

Apart from the comment above, I see a couple of places:

inst/skeleton/zzz.R:#    loadRcppModules()
inst/tinytest/testRcppModule/R/zzz.R:#    loadRcppModules()

These are chunks that have been long commented out, but maybe it's a good time to clean that up too.

[Enchufa2]

The whole section should be removed, right?

[eddelbuettel]

Done and done in the new commits now pushed.

[eddelbuettel]

Funny. I noticed commented-out chunks at other repos (when chasing the issue in rncl). Will clean that up and also revisit the vignette.

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Pull request overview

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[Enchufa2]

LGTM!

[eddelbuettel]

Thanks for catching and highlighting those two issues I overlooked!

[eddelbuettel]

Rev.dep check finished, report file committed

tl;dr:

• rncl breaks, I already filed a small PR for it
• rncl has a fair number of reverse dependencies, and those are taken down here too (six packages)
• another spurious fail we had before, possibly due to opcode for a binary too new for the ancient machine used
• a few packages that already have 'Deadline's set at CRAN fail again

So net-net a single 'change to worse' which we can address (with cooperation of its maintainer, that is)