qqman
The Manhattan-plot package for GWAS results, finished and dormant since 2017.
Comparison · Analytics
constants vs mapSpain
A side-by-side editorial comparison of constants and mapSpain — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
constants vs mapSpain: at a glance
What is constants?
The R package for CODATA constants rebuilt its symbol table on NIST's naming so future updates stop being hand work.
constants exposes the CODATA recommended values of the physical constants to R, as a data frame plus symbol lists that carry units, uncertainties, or both. The package reached 1.0.0 on the 2018 CODATA release and has shipped once since, purely to track a units package update. Its surface is small and its release cadence is bound to CODATA, which revises every few years.
What is mapSpain?
mapSpain's 1.0.0 broke every user cache to get the package onto modern foundations.
mapSpain provides administrative boundaries, tile providers and geographic dictionaries for Spain, pulling from GISCO, SIANE, INE and IGN sources. The 1.0.0 release in January 2026 rebuilt it: requests moved to httr2, the cache reorganized into topic-based subfolders under tools::R_user_dir() instead of rappdirs, R 4.1 became the floor, and every function now returns tidy objects. Existing caches are explicitly incompatible and must be rebuilt.
constants vs mapSpain: editorial side-by-side
constants
0.0ANALYTICS
The R package for CODATA constants rebuilt its symbol table on NIST's naming so future updates stop being hand work.
◆ Current state
constants exposes the CODATA recommended values of the physical constants to R, as a data frame plus symbol lists that carry units, uncertainties, or both. The package reached 1.0.0 on the 2018 CODATA release and has shipped once since, purely to track a units package update. Its surface is small and its release cadence is bound to CODATA, which revises every few years.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction set at 1.0.0 was to stop being a curated convenience wrapper and become a mechanical mirror of NIST. Hand-crafted symbol names were replaced with NIST's own ASCII symbols, categories adopted NIST's, and uncertainty switched from relative to absolute — all framed by the maintainer as necessary to make future CODATA updates routine. On top of that the package gained a correlation matrix and optional integration with the quantities package, moving it from a lookup table toward something that can propagate uncertainty.
◆ Prediction
Having rebuilt the symbol table specifically so CODATA revisions become mechanical, the next substantive release most likely tracks a new CODATA dataset rather than adding API. The experimental correlated-value support, disabled by default at 1.0.0, is the one part these entries flag as unfinished.
mapSpain
0.0ANALYTICS
mapSpain's 1.0.0 broke every user cache to get the package onto modern foundations.
◆ Current state
mapSpain provides administrative boundaries, tile providers and geographic dictionaries for Spain, pulling from GISCO, SIANE, INE and IGN sources. The 1.0.0 release in January 2026 rebuilt it: requests moved to httr2, the cache reorganized into topic-based subfolders under tools::R_user_dir() instead of rappdirs, R 4.1 became the floor, and every function now returns tidy objects. Existing caches are explicitly incompatible and must be rebuilt.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has finished its modernization and moved into consolidation. 1.1.0 added a configurable query timeout and pinned httr2 for compatibility with giscoR, the sibling package it shares plumbing with; 1.2.0 was a declared internal-only refactor with the public API held fixed and the work described as AI-assisted with human review. The data-source expansion that characterized the 0.9.x and 0.10.x line — comarcas by type, simplified INE geometries, SIANE vintages — has paused while the foundations settle.
◆ Prediction
Expect a return to source coverage now that the refactor is done: new SIANE or INE vintages and additional boundary types are the pattern this package has repeated. The entries show no further architectural work queued.
Alternatives to constants and mapSpain
Other Analytics 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 constants or mapSpain.
austraits
The R client for AusTraits spends its releases chasing the dataset it reads.
ggdemetra
A ggplot2 layer for seasonal adjustment output, filling in one plot type at a time.
fossilsim
A fossil-record simulator that quietly grew a trait-evolution engine.
tern.rbmi
Reference-based multiple imputation tables, shipping only what CRAN checks demand.
tern.mmrm
An MMRM tabulation package that has published nothing since its 2024 CRAN releases.
See all constants alternatives → · See all mapSpain alternatives →
Recent activity from constants and mapSpain
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agomapSpainInternal helper refactor with the public API held fixed
- 4mo agomapSpainQuery timeout becomes configurable
- 7mo agomapSpain1.0.0 rebuilds on httr2 and invalidates every cache ⚡
- 1y agomapSpainComarcas and simplified INE geometries added
- 1y agomapSpainComarca types split across four official sources
- 1y agomapSpainAdapted to the SIANE 2024 databases
- 5y agoconstantsCompatibility fix for units 0.7-0
- 5y agoconstantsconstants 1.0.0 ⚡
- 8y agoconstantsUnit handling fixes ahead of the 1.0.0 rebuild
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between constants and mapSpain?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. constants and mapSpain 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 constants better than mapSpain?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. constants and mapSpain 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 Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to constants?
Top constants alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "constants alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/constants-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to mapSpain?
Top mapSpain alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mapSpain alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mapspain for the full list with editorial commentary on each.