randomwalk
randomwalk spent every release getting an R simulation to run in the browser, not on a server.
Comparison · Analytics
cubist vs forecasting
A side-by-side editorial comparison of cubist and forecasting — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:reproducibility
cubist vs forecasting: at a glance
What is cubist?
The R port of Quinlan's Cubist gets reproducibility fixes, not new modelling
Cubist is the R interface to Quinlan's rule-based regression model, wrapping the original C sources behind an R API and feeding the tidymodels rules package. The 0.6.0 release adds a strip_time_stamps control that removes date, time and duration information from model output, and now errors rather than silently misbehaving when a date or date-time column is passed. Error reporting moves from base stop() and warning() to cli.
What is forecasting?
HIDDA.forecasting is a book chapter's reproducibility artifact, not a package under development.
HIDDA.forecasting accompanies a book chapter on forecasting infectious disease counts; its vignettes reproduce the results presented there using arima, prophet, glarma, hhh4contacts and scoringRules. The 1.0.0 release states this outright — it is the version used for the chapter, pinned to CRAN package versions as of July 2018. Every release since has been a vignette rebuild against newer R and dependency versions.
cubist vs forecasting: editorial side-by-side
cubist
0.0ANALYTICS
The R port of Quinlan's Cubist gets reproducibility fixes, not new modelling
◆ Current state
Cubist is the R interface to Quinlan's rule-based regression model, wrapping the original C sources behind an R API and feeding the tidymodels rules package. The 0.6.0 release adds a strip_time_stamps control that removes date, time and duration information from model output, and now errors rather than silently misbehaving when a date or date-time column is passed. Error reporting moves from base stop() and warning() to cli.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is custodial: this is a mature algorithm with a stable definition, so the work is making a decades-old C codebase behave predictably inside a modern R workflow. The reproducibility thread is the clearest one — embedded timestamps mean two identical models compare as different objects, which breaks caching, testing and any workflow that hashes results. Alongside it runs slow C hygiene, from keyword symbol overwrites in 0.5.0 to unused-variable warnings in 0.6.0.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued small maintenance releases tracking CRAN compiler requirements and the needs of the rules package, with no change to the modelling algorithm itself.
forecasting
0.0ANALYTICS
HIDDA.forecasting is a book chapter's reproducibility artifact, not a package under development.
◆ Current state
HIDDA.forecasting accompanies a book chapter on forecasting infectious disease counts; its vignettes reproduce the results presented there using arima, prophet, glarma, hhh4contacts and scoringRules. The 1.0.0 release states this outright — it is the version used for the chapter, pinned to CRAN package versions as of July 2018. Every release since has been a vignette rebuild against newer R and dependency versions.
◆ Where it's heading
The release pattern is maintenance on an eight-year cadence dictated entirely by the surrounding ecosystem: 1.1.1 rebuilt under R 4.0.4, 1.1.2 under R 4.3.2, 1.1.3 under R 4.6.1, each reporting whether the numbers moved. They mostly have not — the recurring note is minor numerical differences confined to the prophet forecasts in vignette('CHILI_prophet'). The only substantive change in the visible history is 1.1.0's methodological tidy-up of the scoring comparisons.
◆ Prediction
Nothing in these entries points to new functionality; the next release is most likely another vignette rebuild whenever a dependency change or a CRAN check failure forces one.
Alternatives to cubist and forecasting
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 cubist or forecasting.
fastml
fastml added survival modelling and leakage-proof resampling, moving past classification and regression.
abclass
abclass built out angle-based classifiers in 2022, then went quiet except for CRAN upkeep.
churon
churon is spending its entire release history getting a Rust ONNX binding through CRAN.
firatheme
firatheme woke up after four years and started fixing what ggplot2 changed underneath it.
bagyo
bagyo reached CRAN as a Philippine tropical cyclone dataset, with its tags stamped out of order.
See all cubist alternatives → · See all forecasting alternatives →
Recent activity from cubist and forecasting
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoforecastingVignettes rebuilt under R 4.6.1
- 5mo agocubiststrip_time_stamps makes fitted models reproducible
- 9mo agocubistCubist 0.5.1
- 1y agocubistCubist 0.5.0
- 2y agocubistCubist 0.4.4
- 2y agoforecastingVignettes rebuilt under R 4.3.2
- 4y agocubistCubist 0.4.0
- 5y agoforecastingVignettes rebuilt under R 4.0.4
- 7y agoforecastingStandard PIT and discretized log-normal scoring
- 7y agoforecastingThe version used for the book chapter, with pinned dependencies
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between cubist and forecasting?
Both compete on the same themes — reproducibility — within Analytics. cubist and forecasting 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 cubist better than forecasting?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. cubist and forecasting 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 cubist?
Top cubist alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "cubist alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cubist for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to forecasting?
Top forecasting alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "forecasting alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/forecasting for the full list with editorial commentary on each.