randomwalk
randomwalk spent every release getting an R simulation to run in the browser, not on a server.
Comparison · Analytics
fillpattern vs ojoregex
A side-by-side editorial comparison of fillpattern and ojoregex — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
fillpattern vs ojoregex: at a glance
What is fillpattern?
Pattern fills for ggplot2, hardened against the ways users write sizes
fillpattern provides pattern fills — stripes, bricks, dots — for ggplot2 and base R graphics, aimed at figures that must stay legible in greyscale or to colour-blind readers. The 1.0.3 release is mostly defensive: size modifier strings ending in a colon no longer swap width for height, modify_size() reports invalid units instead of crashing and understands in, inches and cm, and a background colour bug in scale_fill_pattern() is fixed. The minimum R version rises to 4.2.0 for recent graphics engine features.
What is ojoregex?
Oklahoma's court-data nonprofit maintains the regex layer that turns charge text into categories.
ojoregex is Open Justice Oklahoma's pattern library for classifying criminal charge descriptions from court records — the unglamorous translation layer between free-text charge fields and analysable categories. Its entire release history reached this feed as four tags published within three minutes, so the feed order reflects a backfill rather than a shipping cadence. Release notes are merge references rather than descriptions, which limits how much can be read from the changelog alone.
fillpattern vs ojoregex: editorial side-by-side
fillpattern
0.0ANALYTICS
Pattern fills for ggplot2, hardened against the ways users write sizes
◆ Current state
fillpattern provides pattern fills — stripes, bricks, dots — for ggplot2 and base R graphics, aimed at figures that must stay legible in greyscale or to colour-blind readers. The 1.0.3 release is mostly defensive: size modifier strings ending in a colon no longer swap width for height, modify_size() reports invalid units instead of crashing and understands in, inches and cm, and a background colour bug in scale_fill_pattern() is fixed. The minimum R version rises to 4.2.0 for recent graphics engine features.
◆ Where it's heading
Development is slow and entirely reactive to how the string-based size interface fails. The pattern across releases is the same: a user hits an edge — very small fill areas in 1.0.2, malformed unit strings in 1.0.3 — and the fix is either a graceful fallback or a clearer error. Leaning on R's newer graphics engine rather than reimplementing pattern rendering keeps the package small at the cost of raising its version floor.
◆ Prediction
Expect further releases to stay in the same register: parsing and validation fixes for the size and unit interface, with the pattern set itself unlikely to change.
ojoregex
0.0ANALYTICS
Oklahoma's court-data nonprofit maintains the regex layer that turns charge text into categories.
◆ Current state
ojoregex is Open Justice Oklahoma's pattern library for classifying criminal charge descriptions from court records — the unglamorous translation layer between free-text charge fields and analysable categories. Its entire release history reached this feed as four tags published within three minutes, so the feed order reflects a backfill rather than a shipping cadence. Release notes are merge references rather than descriptions, which limits how much can be read from the changelog alone.
◆ Where it's heading
What the notes do show is a package alternating between domain corrections and R tooling upkeep: a fix to property-crime matching in one release, dplyr select semantics in the next. That is the expected shape for a regex catalogue — accuracy work arrives as individual charge types get miscategorised in real analyses, and the rest is keeping the package installable against a moving tidyverse. Contributions come from a small internal team, and the vignette work referenced in the earliest tag suggests the pattern list doubles as documentation for analysts.
◆ Prediction
The visible pattern is incremental match fixes as charge types surface in use; the release notes carry too little detail to predict anything beyond that without reading the underlying pull requests.
Alternatives to fillpattern and ojoregex
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 fillpattern or ojoregex.
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 fillpattern alternatives → · See all ojoregex alternatives →
Recent activity from fillpattern and ojoregex
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoojoregexPatch for dplyr select semantics
- 1mo agoojoregexojoregex v0.10.0
- 1mo agoojoregexNamespace prefixes fixed, plus a property-crime match bug
- 1mo agoojoregexFirst tagged release, carrying the whole development history
- 6mo agofillpatternSize string parsing fixed; invalid units now report instead of crash
- 2y agofillpatternSmall fill areas no longer crash; min_size falls back to solid
- 2y agofillpatternfillpattern 1.0.1
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between fillpattern and ojoregex?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. fillpattern and ojoregex 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 fillpattern better than ojoregex?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fillpattern and ojoregex 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 fillpattern?
Top fillpattern alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fillpattern alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fillpattern for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ojoregex?
Top ojoregex alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ojoregex alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ojoregex for the full list with editorial commentary on each.