The mcsm package has been validated by CRAN since I got the following emails
the right version on CRAN now ...
and even (recovered from my spam box because of the W word!)
this notification has been generated automatically.Your package mcsm_1.0.tar.gz has been built for Windows andwill be published within 24 hours in the corresponding CRAN directory(CRAN/bin/windows/contrib/2.9/).R version 2.9.0 Patched (2009-04-27 r48414)
(something I obviously could not test!). So, with the package validated and made publicly available, we sent the Enter Monte Carlo Statistical Methods yesterday to John Kimmel from Springer Verlag New York for assessment and (eventually) publication. This is certainly the fastest book writing I have done so far since the previous books took between one year (The Bayesian Choice
- Introduction to R programming
- Random variable generation
- Monte Carlo methods
- Controlling and accelerating convergence
- Monte Carlo optimization
- Metropolis-Hastings algorithms
- Gibbs samplers
- Convergence monitoring for MCMC algorithms
since we eventually decided against including a solution chapter for space (the book is long enough with 270 pages without adding the 50 pages of condensed solutions) and marketing reasons (we can upgrade the solutions in continuous time as well as make [some of] them only available to instructors), even though this may attract criticisms. (The mcsm package can [and need] also be upgraded at will, given the rapidity with which the CRAN maintainers include new packages.) Now, my forecast for the publication of the book is March 2010 at best, given that we need to go through a review process at first and that the production usually takes about six months (or more as in the case of the paperback The Bayesian Choice whose very first printing was lost by the delivery carrier except for a very few collectors!).
