Reusing software by interfacing to an existing library is one of the guiding principles of Bioconductor. Developing good software is difficult and time consuming, and if a well-tested, well-supported implementation with a suitable license already exists for a task, we encourage developers to build upon it. Using R's foreign language interfaces, they can invoke third-party software that is installed elsewhere on the system or they can include and redistribute it with their own Bioconductor package. Within the R ecosystem, the CRAN and Bioconductor repositories provide developers with access to a multitude of packages. These support rapid development because they are units that can be installed and used with little effort, and they encapsulate know-how that is often the concentrate of years of effort.
