pr2database
The protist reference database keeps widening past the rRNA gene it was built on.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
BAS vs ggfootball
A side-by-side editorial comparison of BAS and ggfootball — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
BAS vs ggfootball: at a glance
What is BAS?
A Bayesian model-averaging package spending its 2.0 on memory, not methods.
BAS performs Bayesian variable selection and model averaging for linear and generalized linear models, sampling from a model space too large to enumerate. The visible history splits cleanly: 2023-2024 added sampling machinery — an adaptive independent MCMC sampler with Horvitz-Thompson estimation, hereditary-constraint counting — while 2.0.0 in late 2025 reworked how sampler output is allocated in C. The 2.0.2 patch is a PROTECT fix for rchk warnings.
What is ggfootball?
A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.
ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.
BAS vs ggfootball: editorial side-by-side
BAS
0.0INFRA · APIS
A Bayesian model-averaging package spending its 2.0 on memory, not methods.
◆ Current state
BAS performs Bayesian variable selection and model averaging for linear and generalized linear models, sampling from a model space too large to enumerate. The visible history splits cleanly: 2023-2024 added sampling machinery — an adaptive independent MCMC sampler with Horvitz-Thompson estimation, hereditary-constraint counting — while 2.0.0 in late 2025 reworked how sampler output is allocated in C. The 2.0.2 patch is a PROTECT fix for rchk warnings.
◆ Where it's heading
Memory is the binding constraint and the releases say so directly. The hereditary-constraint counter, the GROW option, and the replacement of over-allocation with resizing all attack the same problem: n.models is a guess, and guessing high wastes memory on problems where few unique models are actually visited. The 2.0.0 work was additionally forced by R tightening its C API against non-API calls like SETLENGTH, a constraint every C-heavy CRAN package has been absorbing. Method development has been quiet since 1.7.x.
◆ Prediction
The 1.7.5 notes call the hereditary-constraint counting a first step and say future updates will cover other constraint types, including polynomials, which remain unhandled. That is the one concrete commitment in this history, though nothing since has returned to it.
ggfootball
0.0INFRA · APIS
A football-viz package just swapped scraping for an API and broke its own output to do it.
◆ Current state
ggfootball is a small R package for plotting expected-goals and shot data, sourced from Understat. Four releases are visible. The 0.2.x line was argument tidying and dependency pruning; 0.3.0 replaced the data-acquisition layer wholesale, moving get_match_shots() from HTML parsing onto Understat's AJAX endpoints and changing the returned column names in the process.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is away from scraped HTML and toward a thinner, more defensible package: four dependencies dropped in 0.3.0 on top of qdapRegex in 0.2.1, input validation added, error messages rewritten. Both breaking changes so far were accepted rather than deferred, which reads as a maintainer treating pre-1.0 as the window to get the shape right. The package is willing to break callers for structural reasons, not cosmetic ones.
◆ Prediction
With the scraper rebuilt and the dependency surface trimmed, the next releases are likely to stabilise the new column names and extend the plotting side, which has seen nothing since 0.2.0. A 1.0 would be the signal that the data structure is now considered fixed.
Alternatives to BAS and ggfootball
Other Infra & APIs products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either BAS or ggfootball.
ggalign
Composable aligned layouts, rebuilt on S7 while ggplot2 4.0 lands underneath.
prioritizr
Conservation planning absorbs the literature's target-setting rules as code.
jSDM
Joint species distribution models in Gibbs-sampled C++, quiet since 2023.
rsofun
An ecosystem model starts tracking carbon isotopes and land-use change.
usmap
Ten years in, US mapping splits its data out and finally adds Puerto Rico.
See all BAS alternatives → · See all ggfootball alternatives →
Recent activity from BAS and ggfootball
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.3.0 ⚡
- 6mo agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.2
- 8mo agoBASBAS 2.0.2
- 8mo agoBASBAS 2.0.0
- 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.1
- 1y agoggfootballggfootball 0.2.0
- 1y agoBASBAS 1.7.5
- 1y agoBASBAS 1.7.3
- 1y agoBASBAS 1.7.2
- 2y agoBASBAS 1.7.1
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between BAS and ggfootball?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Infra & APIs. BAS and ggfootball are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is BAS better than ggfootball?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. BAS and ggfootball are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to BAS?
Top BAS alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "BAS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/bas for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ggfootball?
Top ggfootball alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggfootball alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggfootball for the full list with editorial commentary on each.