Hello, and apologies for the delay.
About the "statement of need" in the paper, I think the current text doesn't do justice to the package. The "Summary" paragraph lists several other packages and their limitations, but description of the functionality of aion is just one short sentence at the end, it sounds anticlimatic.
I suggest that the current "Summary" and "Statement of need" paragraphs are merged into a new "Statement of need" paragraph, and that a new "Summary" is written with a direct focus on what aiondoes.
A possible suggestion for the updated "Statement of need" just by cut and paste of the current text:
# Summary
`aion` is designed to provide a consistent framework for representing
archaeological time series that can extend very far in the past.
`aion` provides a system of classes and methods to represent and work
with such time series. This package does not provide tools for temporal analysis or
modeling. Instead, it offers a system of classes and methods to represent and
work with archaeological time series. This API can be extended and used by other
specialized packages (see `kairos` v2.0 as an example).
# Statement of need
R ships with a lot of functionality useful for time series, in particular
in the base `stats` [@R-stats], or in the `zoo` [@R-zoo] packages[^1].
However, these features are not adapted to most archaeological time series.
At the same time, numerous R packages have been developed to describe, analyze, and model
temporal data in the context of archaeological studies in the broadest sense.
These packages encompass various functionalities, including handling radiocarbon
data (e.g., `Bchron` by @R-Bchron or `rcarbon` by @R-rcarbon), Optically
Stimulated Luminescence dating (`Luminescence` by @R-Luminescence), Bayesian
chronological modeling (`ArchaeoPhases` by @R-ArchaeoPhases),
using paleoenvironmental proxies (e.g., `shoredate` by @R-shoredate), or other
temporal data (e.g., `kairos` by @R-kairos). This multitude of packages
underscores the significance of computational approaches in archaeology
[@schmidt2020]. However, it also presents a major challenge as each package
employs its own representation of temporal information. Consequently, exchanging
data between different packages within the same data workflow becomes even more
arduous.
Archaeological data is typically collected through field excavations or
surveys, resulting in irregularly spaced observation times. Although several
packages can handle irregular time series, the way they represent dates means
they cannot easily be used for archaeological series. These are indeed defined
for a given calendar era and more importantly they can involve dates very far
in the past.
Hello, and apologies for the delay. About the "statement of need" in the paper, I think the current text doesn't do justice to the package. The "Summary" paragraph lists several other packages and their limitations, but description of the functionality of aion is just one short sentence at the end, it sounds anticlimatic.
I suggest that the current "Summary" and "Statement of need" paragraphs are merged into a new "Statement of need" paragraph, and that a new "Summary" is written with a direct focus on what
aion
does.A possible suggestion for the updated "Statement of need" just by cut and paste of the current text: