qqman
The Manhattan-plot package for GWAS results, finished and dormant since 2017.
Comparison · Analytics
constants vs seriation
A side-by-side editorial comparison of constants and seriation — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
constants vs seriation: 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 seriation?
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
seriation finds meaningful orderings for matrices, distance objects and dendrograms, and carries a large registry of methods from classic combinatorial criteria to t-SNE and UMAP embeddings. The 1.5.0 release added a layer above that registry — seriate_best(), seriate_rep() and seriate_improve() — which run randomized methods repeatedly, in parallel, and keep the best result. Recent work is definitional and numeric rather than additive: 1.5.8 corrects the linear seriation criterion to match Hubert and Schultz's original 1976 definition.
constants vs seriation: 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.
seriation
0.0ANALYTICS
seriation stopped shipping algorithms and started shipping a way to pick between them.
◆ Current state
seriation finds meaningful orderings for matrices, distance objects and dendrograms, and carries a large registry of methods from classic combinatorial criteria to t-SNE and UMAP embeddings. The 1.5.0 release added a layer above that registry — seriate_best(), seriate_rep() and seriate_improve() — which run randomized methods repeatedly, in parallel, and keep the best result. Recent work is definitional and numeric rather than additive: 1.5.8 corrects the linear seriation criterion to match Hubert and Schultz's original 1976 definition.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has shifted from breadth to judgment. Through 1.3.x the additions were new methods; from 1.5.0 the registry started carrying metadata about the methods — whether they are randomized, what criterion they optimize — so the package could choose and evaluate on the user's behalf. The 1.5.6 replacement of FORTRAN with C for BEA and ME points the same way, reducing the legacy surface underneath that machinery.
◆ Prediction
Further criterion audits are the likeliest next move, since 1.5.8 shows a published definition being reconciled against the implementation and the registry now records what each method optimizes. Expect corrections rather than new seriation algorithms.
Alternatives to constants and seriation
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 seriation.
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 seriation alternatives →
Recent activity from constants and seriation
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 0y agoseriationseriation 1.5.8 realigns linear criterion with Hubert and Schultz
- 1y agoseriationseriation 1.5.7 adds BK_unconstrained, handles tiny inputs
- 1y agoseriationseriation 1.5.6 replaces FORTRAN BEA with C, modernizes allocation
- 2y agoseriationseriation 1.5.5 digest: AOE method, rep parameter, MDS_angle fix
- 3y agoseriationseriation 1.5.1 refines pimage, permute and hmap
- 3y agoseriationseriation 1.5.0 adds seriate_best and parallel repeated search ⚡
- 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 seriation?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. constants and seriation 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 seriation?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. constants and seriation 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 seriation?
Top seriation alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "seriation alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/seriation-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.