Many Bioconductor packages have extensive code examples and tests with which the authors can ensure that their software remains functional even as components up- and downstream change. Of equal importance is keeping the documentation synchronized with changes in the code. Although the testing system places a substantial load both on the central repository and on all developers, it provides a degree of software coherence and usability that is rare in software projects with a diverse and distributed developer community. Of course, limitations exist: the reach and stringency of the tests, beyond the required minimum, vary depending on the package authors. The quality of the repository was highlighted in an editorial in Nature Genetics [17], which listed the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) and Bioconductor as the only software repositories endorsed by that journal, across all programming languages.
