Request: install_dev() function

[ghost]

@wch commented on May 1, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC:

The idea is that this installer function could install the development version of a package without needing the github username. So, running this would work:

install_dev("later")

This function would query crandb (like http://crandb.r-pkg.org/later) for the GitHub (or other) URL of a package, and then install from there.

This issue was moved by jimhester from r-lib/devtools#1775.

[gaborcsardi]

This would work best if packages had a designated DevRepository (or similar) field. Currently we can look at the BugReports and the URL fields, and see if they point to GH.

[gaborcsardi]

I think it is a good idea, and not too hard to implement.