rollupTree
The recursive-computation engine under massProps grows the accessors its consumer needed
Comparison · Infra & APIs
ggpointless vs midr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ggpointless and midr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
ggpointless vs midr: at a glance
What is ggpointless?
ggpointless keeps adding the ggplot2 layers nobody else bothered to write.
ggpointless is a small ggplot2 extension collecting geoms that sit outside the standard set — Lexis diagrams, Chaikin-smoothed paths, hanging chains, Fourier reconstructions — and it has grown steadily rather than changed shape. The May release is the largest yet: isotype and pictogram bar charts as stacks of discrete unit cells, a family of geoms that fade paths, segments, curves and reference lines along their length, and geom_gridline(), which draws grid lines as a layer on top of the data rather than beneath it.
What is midr?
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
midr explains black-box models by fitting an interpretable surrogate through Maximum Interpretation Decomposition — main effects plus second-order interactions, with exact Shapley values for the surrogate. Two months after its first CRAN release it can take a matrix response, which covers multi-class classification and survival models, and hold collections of fitted interpretations in midlist and midrib objects for comparison.
ggpointless vs midr: editorial side-by-side
ggpointless
0.0INFRA · APIS
ggpointless keeps adding the ggplot2 layers nobody else bothered to write.
◆ Current state
ggpointless is a small ggplot2 extension collecting geoms that sit outside the standard set — Lexis diagrams, Chaikin-smoothed paths, hanging chains, Fourier reconstructions — and it has grown steadily rather than changed shape. The May release is the largest yet: isotype and pictogram bar charts as stacks of discrete unit cells, a family of geoms that fade paths, segments, curves and reference lines along their length, and geom_gridline(), which draws grid lines as a layer on top of the data rather than beneath it.
◆ Where it's heading
Two patterns are visible. Ideas get generalized rather than left as one-offs: geom_area_fade() in the previous release established alpha gradients via grid::linearGradient(), and the recent release spreads that treatment across paths, lines, steps, segments, curves and the three reference-line geoms, each with the same fade_direction and alpha_fade_to arguments. And each new geom is expected to survive real plots — the unit charts work under coord_equal, coord_polar, coord_radial, coord_flip and faceting, and geom_gridline reads positions from trained scales and inherits styling from the theme's panel grid. The package also tracks ggplot2 closely, requiring 4.0.0 and using make_constructor() and gg_par() internally, and it dropped its bundled datasets outright rather than maintain stale copies.
◆ Prediction
The fade treatment now covers most path-like geoms but not the area and ribbon family beyond geom_area_fade(), which is where the pattern has room left to run. The unit-cell charts arrive with a label helper and no fill or grouping variants, so those are the plausible next additions.
midr
0.0INFRA · APIS
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
◆ Current state
midr explains black-box models by fitting an interpretable surrogate through Maximum Interpretation Decomposition — main effects plus second-order interactions, with exact Shapley values for the surrogate. Two months after its first CRAN release it can take a matrix response, which covers multi-class classification and survival models, and hold collections of fitted interpretations in midlist and midrib objects for comparison.
◆ Where it's heading
The releases move outward along two axes at once: what can be interpreted, and how much of it fits in memory. Version 0.5.3 rebuilt the fitting path to avoid materialising large design matrices and added a save.memory option; 0.6.0 widened the response from a vector to a matrix and added parametric link functions. Class and argument names were shortened in the same release, so the package is still willing to break itself this early.
◆ Prediction
With multiple models now held in one object and visualisation methods for them, comparison across models is the surface most likely to fill out next — the collection classes exist but the notes describe manipulation and plotting rather than any comparison metric.
Alternatives to ggpointless and midr
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 ggpointless or midr.
massProps
A mass-properties rollup spends a year on documentation and follows its sibling's API
writeAlizer
Six months of releases and not one of them touched the scoring models
samplr
A cognitive-science sampling package ships once, then goes quiet for eighteen months
stochvol
A Bayesian volatility sampler in its maintenance decade, paying for its own speed
GeoThinneR
Spatial thinning grows a result object, and the API breaks to make room for it
See all ggpointless alternatives → · See all midr alternatives →
Recent activity from ggpointless and midr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3mo agoggpointlessPictogram unit charts, gridline layers and a family of fading geoms
- 5mo agoggpointlessFourier and arch geoms, area fades and glowing points
- 5mo agomidrMatrix responses bring multi-class and survival models in scope ⚡
- 7mo agomidrFirst CRAN release: MID surrogate models for black-box explanation ⚡
- 7mo agomidrMemory-efficient fitting for large design matrices
- 2y agoggpointlessgeom_catenary() draws a hanging chain
- 3y agoggpointlessgeom_chaikin() adds corner-cutting path smoothing
- 4y agoggpointlessgeom_lexis() and the female_leaders dataset
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ggpointless and midr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ggpointless and midr 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 ggpointless better than midr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ggpointless and midr 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.
What are the best alternatives to ggpointless?
Top ggpointless alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ggpointless alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ggpointless for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to midr?
Top midr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "midr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/midr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.