mice
mice can finally predict, not just estimate, from multiply imputed data.
A side-by-side editorial comparison of GeoThinneR and samplr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Spatial thinning grows a result object, and the API breaks to make room for it
GeoThinneR removes spatially redundant occurrence records before species distribution modelling. Version 2.0.0 restructured it around a GeoThinned S3 class with print, summary, plot and trial-accessor methods, replacing the bare logical vectors earlier versions returned, and reorganised the methods into three named strategies — distance, grid and precision — with the search algorithm as a separate argument. The two releases since have added a priority system for choosing which of several tied points to drop.
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
samplr compares human performance against sampling algorithms, giving cognitive scientists the MCMC machinery to test whether people behave like samplers. Its entire public history is three releases: a 1.0.0 in August 2024, a floating-point fix eighteen seconds later, and then nothing until a February 2026 patch. The release notes are unusually thin even by CRAN standards.
GeoThinneR removes spatially redundant occurrence records before species distribution modelling. Version 2.0.0 restructured it around a GeoThinned S3 class with print, summary, plot and trial-accessor methods, replacing the bare logical vectors earlier versions returned, and reorganised the methods into three named strategies — distance, grid and precision — with the search algorithm as a separate argument. The two releases since have added a priority system for choosing which of several tied points to drop.
The package is moving from a function that returns an answer to a tool that returns something you can interrogate. Multiple thinning trials are first-class — you can ask for the largest, fetch a specific one, summarise one — and the recent work is about making the choice among tied candidates controllable rather than random. Dependency discipline runs alongside: the R-tree method was dropped when its package was not on CRAN, and spatial coverage degrades to NA rather than failing when s2 is missing.
The priority mechanism now covers all three strategies and the last release was an overflow fix in the local kd-tree path at large sizes, so scale is where the pressure is. More work on the distance methods at large N is the likelier next step than another strategy.
samplr compares human performance against sampling algorithms, giving cognitive scientists the MCMC machinery to test whether people behave like samplers. Its entire public history is three releases: a 1.0.0 in August 2024, a floating-point fix eighteen seconds later, and then nothing until a February 2026 patch. The release notes are unusually thin even by CRAN standards.
The feed shows a package that shipped and stopped. The 2024 tags were both created in one sitting and say almost nothing; the 2026 release is a row-count bug in Mean_Variance() bundled with citation metadata, a dropped dependency and http-to-https link fixes — the housekeeping profile of a package being kept alive for the paper that cites it rather than actively developed.
Adding citation information to the README is usually the move of a maintainer expecting the package to be referenced rather than extended. On this cadence the next release is more likely another CRAN-hygiene patch than new algorithms; there is not enough in these notes to say otherwise.
Other Infra & APIs 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 GeoThinneR or samplr.
mice can finally predict, not just estimate, from multiply imputed data.
A market-microstructure toolkit that keeps adding estimators as the papers land.
A vowel-analysis package trimming dependencies after an email address got it archived.
The R half of the EMU speech database system, fixing what was quietly broken.
A Bayesian model-averaging package spending its 2.0 on memory, not methods.
tidyplots keeps rebuilding its own foundations rather than layering around them.
See all GeoThinneR alternatives → · See all samplr alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. GeoThinneR and samplr 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.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. GeoThinneR and samplr 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 Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
Top GeoThinneR alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "GeoThinneR alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/geothinner for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top samplr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "samplr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/samplr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.