gps2gtfs
gps2gtfs spent a release making its docs stop describing functions it does not have.
Comparison · Analytics
glydraw vs glyfun
A side-by-side editorial comparison of glydraw and glyfun — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:glycomics
glydraw vs glyfun: at a glance
What is glydraw?
SNFG glycan cartoons stopped being pictures and became ggplot2 geoms, guides and axis labels.
glydraw renders glycan structures as SNFG-standard cartoons, standalone or exported in bulk, and since 0.7.0 as native ggplot2 components: geom_glycan() for observations, geom_node_glycan() for ggraph networks, guide_glycan() for legends, and scale_x_glycan() and scale_y_glycan() for discrete axes. Appearance is configured through a single reusable style object rather than scattered arguments, a consolidation that 0.8.0 made breaking. The colour handling now expects a complete SNFG palette rather than sparse per-monosaccharide overrides.
What is glyfun?
glyfun is three releases old and has spent all of them chasing glyexp's container change.
glyfun is the newest glycoverse package, carved out to hold the enrichment analysis functions that glystats deprecated. Its entire visible history is the 0.1.x series, and all three releases are container plumbing: detected_universe() learning to accept GlycoproteomicSE, then the vignette and documentation following. There is no independent feature work in the record yet.
glydraw vs glyfun: editorial side-by-side
glydraw
6.3ANALYTICS
SNFG glycan cartoons stopped being pictures and became ggplot2 geoms, guides and axis labels.
◆ Current state
glydraw renders glycan structures as SNFG-standard cartoons, standalone or exported in bulk, and since 0.7.0 as native ggplot2 components: geom_glycan() for observations, geom_node_glycan() for ggraph networks, guide_glycan() for legends, and scale_x_glycan() and scale_y_glycan() for discrete axes. Appearance is configured through a single reusable style object rather than scattered arguments, a consolidation that 0.8.0 made breaking. The colour handling now expects a complete SNFG palette rather than sparse per-monosaccharide overrides.
◆ Where it's heading
The first half of this record is geometry correctness, fixing branch spacing, overlapping linkage annotations, core fucose collisions, triangle alignment and nested side-chain layout, because a cartoon that draws the wrong topology is worse than no cartoon. Once the drawing was trustworthy the package moved outward into ggplot2 and then inward again to consolidate its own API, dropping the glyexp dependency, removing positional argument support, and folding rendering options into style_glydraw(). Each of the last several releases has been explicitly breaking, which is a maintainer using a pre-1.0 window deliberately.
◆ Prediction
With the style object established and the ggplot2 surface in place, the remaining explicit arguments, show_linkage and orient, are the visible inconsistency and may follow the others into the style. Sibling packages adopt each change within days, as glyenzy did with the new orientation values, so expect the next breaking change to propagate the same way.
glyfun
0.0ANALYTICS
glyfun is three releases old and has spent all of them chasing glyexp's container change.
◆ Current state
glyfun is the newest glycoverse package, carved out to hold the enrichment analysis functions that glystats deprecated. Its entire visible history is the 0.1.x series, and all three releases are container plumbing: detected_universe() learning to accept GlycoproteomicSE, then the vignette and documentation following. There is no independent feature work in the record yet.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a package being born into a migration rather than one navigating it. Because glystats removed its gly_enrich_*() functions outright and glysmith already routes enrichment through glyfun, the functional surface is inherited rather than designed here. The near-term arc is catching up to the rest of the stack; the interesting question is what glyfun adds once it is no longer just the relocation target.
◆ Prediction
Expect the first release with genuinely new enrichment capability rather than migration plumbing, most likely broadening the gene-set sources glystats never covered.
Alternatives to glydraw and glyfun
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 glydraw or glyfun.
ducksemantics
ducksemantics puts an ontology graph and ColBERT retrieval inside DuckDB, callable from R.
dvir
dvir keeps making disaster victim identification a single call instead of a workflow.
pedbuildr
pedbuildr reconstructs pedigrees from DNA, and it just got much faster at the search.
forrel
forrel is getting faster at the simulations forensic kinship work actually spends its time on.
pedFamilias
pedFamilias exists to read one legacy file format, and it has that job nearly finished.
See all glydraw alternatives → · See all glyfun alternatives →
Recent activity from glydraw and glyfun
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 14d agoglydrawRendering options consolidated into a single style object
- 22d agoglydrawGlycan cartoons become ggplot2 geoms, legends and axis labels ⚡
- 1mo agoglyfunDocs move to GlycoproteomicSE inputs
- 1mo agoglyfunVignette runs against both container types
- 1mo agoglyfundetected_universe() accepts GlycoproteomicSE objects
- 1mo agoglydrawNested side-chain layout preserves residue order and linkage labels
- 1mo agoglydrawFucose triangle geometry aligned to rectangle node bounds
- 1mo agoglydrawCustom colours, fucose orientation and export scaling; glyexp dependency dropped
- 1mo agoglydrawSwitches to SNFG standard colours
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between glydraw and glyfun?
Both compete on the same themes — glycomics — within Analytics. glydraw is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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.
Is glydraw better than glyfun?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. glydraw is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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.
What are the best alternatives to glydraw?
Top glydraw alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "glydraw alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/glydraw for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to glyfun?
Top glyfun alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "glyfun alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/glyfun for the full list with editorial commentary on each.