rollupTree
The recursive-computation engine under massProps grows the accessors its consumer needed
Comparison · Infra & APIs
checkhelper vs serocalculator
A side-by-side editorial comparison of checkhelper and serocalculator — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:cran-compliance
checkhelper vs serocalculator: at a glance
What is checkhelper?
checkhelper grew from a check wrapper into a CRAN pre-submission auditor.
1.0.0 added a whole audit_* family — audit_downloads(), audit_description(), audit_dontrun() and audit_citation() — each parsing package source statically and returning a tibble of hits paired with a suggested fix. The package is now defending that position: 1.0.1 rc1 is a submission candidate answering a CRAN archival notice, after roxygen2 8.x moved DESCRIPTION's RoxygenNote field and broke a find_missing_tags() test fixture.
What is serocalculator?
A seroincidence engine grows up: whole API renamed, then clustered survey designs
serocalculator turns cross-sectional antibody measurements into infection-rate estimates, and it spent its last two releases making itself safe to depend on. Version 1.4.0 renamed nearly every user-facing function into a consistent est_seroincidence()/sr_params vocabulary; 1.4.1 shipped the migration crosswalk that admits how much that broke. The newest capability is cluster-robust variance estimation for household- and school-based surveys.
checkhelper vs serocalculator: editorial side-by-side
checkhelper
2.5INFRA · APIS
checkhelper grew from a check wrapper into a CRAN pre-submission auditor.
◆ Current state
1.0.0 added a whole audit_* family — audit_downloads(), audit_description(), audit_dontrun() and audit_citation() — each parsing package source statically and returning a tibble of hits paired with a suggested fix. The package is now defending that position: 1.0.1 rc1 is a submission candidate answering a CRAN archival notice, after roxygen2 8.x moved DESCRIPTION's RoxygenNote field and broke a find_missing_tags() test fixture.
◆ Where it's heading
The design commitment is static analysis — AST walks via getParseData(), line-by-line Rd reading, no eval() and no namespace loading — so the tool can report on a package it never runs. That commitment is what made the roxygen2 8.x break survivable: the audit pipeline itself was verified correct under 8.1.0 and only the test scaffolding had to go, now guarded by a dedicated regression test. fix_globals(write = TRUE) is being sanded down in parallel, no longer flattening per-function grouping comments or writing a degenerate empty globalVariables() shell.
◆ Prediction
The immediate move is the 1.0.1 submission itself, clearing the archival notice. Beyond that, each additional CRAN incoming-check rule remains a candidate for another audit_* function; the open question these notes still leave is whether the family ever gets a single combined entry point.
serocalculator
0.0INFRA · APIS
A seroincidence engine grows up: whole API renamed, then clustered survey designs
◆ Current state
serocalculator turns cross-sectional antibody measurements into infection-rate estimates, and it spent its last two releases making itself safe to depend on. Version 1.4.0 renamed nearly every user-facing function into a consistent est_seroincidence()/sr_params vocabulary; 1.4.1 shipped the migration crosswalk that admits how much that broke. The newest capability is cluster-robust variance estimation for household- and school-based surveys.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc runs from method to instrument. Early releases added example data and plotting; recent ones fix the API surface, satisfy CRAN's offline-failure policy, and extend the estimator to sampling designs field epidemiology actually uses — multi-level clustering, stratification, and the two combined. Each release also carries visible refactoring discipline (one function per file, linting, per-PR website previews) that reads like a package preparing for contributors it does not have yet.
◆ Prediction
With cluster_var and stratum_var now threaded through both est_seroincidence() and est_seroincidence_by(), survey weights are the remaining piece of a complex-survey design the sandwich estimator does not cover. The entries do not name it, so read that as direction rather than a promise.
Alternatives to checkhelper and serocalculator
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 checkhelper or serocalculator.
massProps
A mass-properties rollup spends a year on documentation and follows its sibling's API
writeAlizer
Six months of releases and not one of them touched the scoring models
samplr
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
stochvol
A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed
midr
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
See all checkhelper alternatives → · See all serocalculator alternatives →
Recent activity from checkhelper and serocalculator
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agocheckhelpercheckhelper 1.0.1 rc1 (CRAN submission candidate)
- 3mo agoserocalculatorCluster-robust standard errors for household and school surveys ⚡
- 3mo agocheckhelperA static audit_* family for CRAN pre-submission checks ⚡
- 7mo agoserocalculatorEvery estimation function renamed, plus a simulation-study workflow ⚡
- 1y agoserocalculatorBundled example datasets and a locator to find them
- 2y agocheckhelperTest fixes for roxygen2 changes
- 3y agocheckhelpercheckhelper 0.1.0 - First CRAN Release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between checkhelper and serocalculator?
Both compete on the same themes — cran-compliance — within Infra & APIs. checkhelper is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is checkhelper better than serocalculator?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. checkhelper is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to checkhelper?
Top checkhelper alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "checkhelper alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/checkhelper for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to serocalculator?
Top serocalculator alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "serocalculator alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/serocalculator for the full list with editorial commentary on each.