vim
Six dormant years end with a correctness audit across VIM's entire imputation surface
A side-by-side editorial comparison of discretefdr and fitVARMxID — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
The discrete-data FDR package is being pared into one piece of a larger multiple-testing suite.
DiscreteFDR implements false discovery rate procedures adapted for discrete test statistics, where the standard continuous-case corrections are conservative. It now covers a discrete Benjamini-Yekutieli procedure alongside the Benjamini-Hochberg variants it started with, including adaptive versions. Its datasets and test-result classes have been moved out into companion packages, so it increasingly does one job and defers the rest.
A VAR-model fitting package acquiring the standard R methods it launched without
fitVARMxID fits vector autoregressive models via OpenMx identification, and is one of several packages maintained by the jeksterslab account. Its recent releases are small and additive: confint() and plot() methods, a save function, and before that a documentation pass. The feed also carries automated build commits that are pure CI artifacts.
DiscreteFDR implements false discovery rate procedures adapted for discrete test statistics, where the standard continuous-case corrections are conservative. It now covers a discrete Benjamini-Yekutieli procedure alongside the Benjamini-Hochberg variants it started with, including adaptive versions. Its datasets and test-result classes have been moved out into companion packages, so it increasingly does one job and defers the rest.
The direction is decomposition into a suite. The amnesia dataset went to DiscreteDatasets, summary output now interoperates with the DiscreteTestResults class from DiscreteTests, and match.pvals() stopped being exported — each release trims something that belongs elsewhere. What remains gets methodological additions at a slow, deliberate cadence, with performance work on the step-up procedures that dominate cost when the number of tests is large. Recent activity is maintenance: replacing deprecated calls the package still made of its own siblings. This is a mature statistical package whose release notes are short because the methods underneath them are settled.
Expect further alignment with the companion packages rather than new procedures, since the last substantive release was already about interoperating with DiscreteTests classes and the most recent one about clearing deprecations.
fitVARMxID fits vector autoregressive models via OpenMx identification, and is one of several packages maintained by the jeksterslab account. Its recent releases are small and additive: confint() and plot() methods, a save function, and before that a documentation pass. The feed also carries automated build commits that are pure CI artifacts.
This is a package settling into R conventions rather than growing capability. Adding confint() and plot() is the standard-methods work most modeling packages do once the estimation core is stable — it signals the author considers the fitting side done. Cadence is roughly quarterly and the changes get smaller each time.
Further method coverage — summary(), predict(), or coef() — is the likely next step, since confint() and plot() are usually the first two of that set rather than the last.
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 discretefdr or fitVARMxID.
Six dormant years end with a correctness audit across VIM's entire imputation surface
A dormant table-formatting package woken by a 20-PR correctness and coverage sweep
The write half of the Antares R toolchain, hitting 1.0 by tracking the simulator rather than stabilizing
The R reader for Antares Simulator studies, pinned to whatever the simulator ships next
The out-of-memory backend for R/qtl2, feature-complete since 2020 and now purely on upkeep
A single-purpose mouse map interpolator that solved its problem in 2023 and has coasted since
See all discretefdr alternatives → · See all fitVARMxID alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. fitVARMxID 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fitVARMxID 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 Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
Top discretefdr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "discretefdr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/discretefdr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top fitVARMxID alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fitVARMxID alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fitvarmxid for the full list with editorial commentary on each.