tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
gigs vs parzer
A side-by-side editorial comparison of gigs and parzer — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:ropensci
gigs vs parzer: at a glance
What is gigs?
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
gigs implements international newborn and infant growth standards — INTERGROWTH-21st, WHO — converting anthropometric measurements to z-scores and centiles and classifying growth outcomes. The 0.5.0 release rewrote the public API around rOpenSci review feedback; the two releases after it change no code at all, existing purely to get the documentation site building.
What is parzer?
A coordinate parser whose entire job is surviving how badly humans write latitude and longitude.
parzer converts messy coordinate strings — degrees, minutes, seconds, assorted symbols, arbitrary whitespace — into decimal degrees. Development is slow and sporadic, with three-year gaps between releases, and the work splits between C++ performance in the internal scrub() path and a long tail of parsing bugs. The most recent release, 0.4.4, fixed two genuinely dangerous ones: a leading space could silently drop a negative sign, and an E in a longitude string returned NA while a W parsed fine.
gigs vs parzer: editorial side-by-side
gigs
0.0ANALYTICS
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
◆ Current state
gigs implements international newborn and infant growth standards — INTERGROWTH-21st, WHO — converting anthropometric measurements to z-scores and centiles and classifying growth outcomes. The 0.5.0 release rewrote the public API around rOpenSci review feedback; the two releases after it change no code at all, existing purely to get the documentation site building.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has moved from vector-in, vector-out conversion helpers to a data.frame-oriented interface with a single classify_growth() entry point that computes whatever outcomes the supplied columns allow. That is a shift from library to tool — the user describes their data rather than picking the right function. The trailing releases suggest the code is settled and the remaining work is packaging and discoverability.
◆ Prediction
With the API rewrite absorbed and hosting moved to rOpenSci, the next substantive release should add growth standards or outcomes rather than reshape the interface again.
parzer
0.0ANALYTICS
A coordinate parser whose entire job is surviving how badly humans write latitude and longitude.
◆ Current state
parzer converts messy coordinate strings — degrees, minutes, seconds, assorted symbols, arbitrary whitespace — into decimal degrees. Development is slow and sporadic, with three-year gaps between releases, and the work splits between C++ performance in the internal scrub() path and a long tail of parsing bugs. The most recent release, 0.4.4, fixed two genuinely dangerous ones: a leading space could silently drop a negative sign, and an E in a longitude string returned NA while a W parsed fine.
◆ Where it's heading
The package has settled its scope — 0.4.1 explicitly rewrote the documentation to say it parses coordinates rather than validates them — and now moves only when someone finds a string it mishandles. Recent work has also been about shedding weight: Rcpp dependence reduced, the C++ requirement dropped from DESCRIPTION, suggested dependencies removed, and the vignette builder moved to Quarto. Maintainership passed to a new maintainer in 2022 and the package has stayed within rOpenSci.
◆ Prediction
The next release will most likely be another batch of parsing edge cases reported by users, since that is what every release since 0.2.0 has been. Nothing in these entries points to new functionality.
Alternatives to gigs and parzer
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 gigs or parzer.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
datasetjson
datasetjson rebuilt its object model to track the CDISC Dataset-JSON 1.1 schema.
Recent activity from gigs and parzer
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agoparzerFixes dropped negative signs and mis-parsed E longitudes
- 1y agogigsDocs and Zenodo archiving
- 1y agogigsDocs-only release; nothing changed internally
- 1y agogigsConversion API rewritten around data frames and classify_growth() ⚡
- 2y agogigsDocumentation fixes for autotest compliance
- 2y agogigsINTERGROWTH-21st fetal standards and input validation
- 2y agogigsPatch release with documentation update
- 4y agoparzerScope clarified: parsing, not coordinate validation
- 5y agoparzerFaster scrub(); works around non-UTF8 locales on Windows
- 5y agoparzerFixes factor conversion in parse_llstr() on older R
- 5y agoparzerparse_llstr() parses latitude and longitude from one string
- 6y agoparzerMore degree symbols recognised; NA handling fixed in C++
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between gigs and parzer?
Both compete on the same themes — ropensci — within Analytics. gigs and parzer 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 gigs better than parzer?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. gigs and parzer 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 gigs?
Top gigs alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "gigs alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gigs for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to parzer?
Top parzer alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "parzer alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/parzer for the full list with editorial commentary on each.