simlandr
Potential landscape tooling settling onto standard R generics after two rounds of renaming.
Comparison · Analytics
delaporte vs ggtrace
A side-by-side editorial comparison of delaporte and ggtrace — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
delaporte vs ggtrace: at a glance
What is delaporte?
A Fortran-backed Delaporte distribution package where every release is compiler and CRAN weather.
Delaporte supplies the density, distribution, quantile and random-generation functions for the Delaporte distribution — a Poisson-negative-binomial convolution used for overdispersed count data — implemented in Fortran and called through C. The only user-facing addition in the visible history is explicit OpenMP thread control via getDelapThreads() and setDelapThreads() at 8.2.0.
What is ggtrace?
A debugger for ggplot2's internals, hardening its grip as the internals it traces keep moving.
ggtrace lets users step inside ggplot2's rendering pipeline — tracing ggproto methods, dumping intermediate state, and snapshotting layer data at each stage via layer_before_stat(), layer_after_stat(), layer_before_geom() and layer_after_scale(). The workflow functions gained short aliases at 0.7.1, and recent releases have gone into making method resolution work on ggproto definitions written in forms the tracer did not originally expect.
delaporte vs ggtrace: editorial side-by-side
delaporte
0.0ANALYTICS
A Fortran-backed Delaporte distribution package where every release is compiler and CRAN weather.
◆ Current state
Delaporte supplies the density, distribution, quantile and random-generation functions for the Delaporte distribution — a Poisson-negative-binomial convolution used for overdispersed count data — implemented in Fortran and called through C. The only user-facing addition in the visible history is explicit OpenMP thread control via getDelapThreads() and setDelapThreads() at 8.2.0.
◆ Where it's heading
The maintenance burden here is portability, not statistics. Recent entries track a Fortran suffix change for Intel compiler compatibility, architecture-specific test tolerances, type-safety corrections on values crossing the C-to-Fortran boundary, and a thread-count variable relocated from R options to an environment variable to follow an upstream R commit. The distribution functions themselves are settled; what changes is how the compiled code is built and checked across CRAN's platform matrix.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release to follow another CRAN toolchain or Writing R Extensions policy change, as the last several have. Two of the four visible entries carry no notes at all, so this feed will keep understating what actually shipped.
ggtrace
0.0ANALYTICS
A debugger for ggplot2's internals, hardening its grip as the internals it traces keep moving.
◆ Current state
ggtrace lets users step inside ggplot2's rendering pipeline — tracing ggproto methods, dumping intermediate state, and snapshotting layer data at each stage via layer_before_stat(), layer_after_stat(), layer_before_geom() and layer_after_scale(). The workflow functions gained short aliases at 0.7.1, and recent releases have gone into making method resolution work on ggproto definitions written in forms the tracer did not originally expect.
◆ Where it's heading
The package matured from raw tracing primitives into named workflows: 0.6.0 added the sublayer snapshot functions and error-context helpers, 0.7.x has been sanding down how reliably those workflows find and evaluate a method. Three consecutive releases in May 2025, two of them minutes apart, all address the same class of failure — one-liner ggproto methods without braces, and inheritance resolution on instances rather than subclasses. That pattern says the remaining bugs are in method introspection, not in the tracing machinery itself.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued fixes to method resolution as ggplot2's ggproto definitions vary, and realignment work when ggplot2 4.x changes internals this package deliberately reaches into. The entries do not signal new workflow functions.
Alternatives to delaporte and ggtrace
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 delaporte or ggtrace.
lavaanExtra
SEM reporting helpers converging on APA output, one CRAN resubmission at a time.
ibis.iSDM
A raster-to-terra migration is the only readable change in a feed of merge notes.
anyflights
A nycflights13 generator whose recent work is all about the data being right.
vinereg
Conditional density and log-likelihood fill out a vine copula regression package.
stringx
A drop-in string API for base R, kept alive by upstream check failures.
See all delaporte alternatives → · See all ggtrace alternatives →
Recent activity from delaporte and ggtrace
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agodelaporteThread limit moves to an environment variable; Fortran type checks tightened
- 1y agoggtraceBrace-less one-liner methods traced gracefully
- 1y agoggtraceget_method_inheritance() fixed for class instances
- 1y agoggtraceWorkflow functions recognise one-liner ggproto methods
- 1y agoggtraceEager layer_is(), clearer method-mismatch errors, consistent tracedump names
- 1y agoggtracetrace_steps = "all" added; double-evaluation side effects fixed
- 1y agoggtracelayer_is() targets by_layer() downstream directly
- 3y agodelaporteExplicit OpenMP thread control functions added
- 3y agodelaporteCRAN release 8.1.1
- 3y agodelaporteCRAN release 8.1.0
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between delaporte and ggtrace?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. delaporte and ggtrace 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 delaporte better than ggtrace?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. delaporte and ggtrace 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 delaporte?
Top delaporte alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "delaporte alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/delaporte for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ggtrace?
Top ggtrace alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggtrace alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggtrace for the full list with editorial commentary on each.