simlandr
Potential landscape tooling settling onto standard R generics after two rounds of renaming.
Comparison · Analytics
glydraw vs vinereg
A side-by-side editorial comparison of glydraw and vinereg — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
glydraw vs vinereg: 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 vinereg?
Conditional density and log-likelihood fill out a vine copula regression package.
vinereg fits D-vine copula-based regression models on top of rvinecopulib and kde1d, in Thomas Nagler's package stack. The January 2025 pair - 0.10.0 and 0.11.0 tagged the same day - adds a pdf() function and then fixes conditional density computation for discrete variables while requiring the newer kde1d. Release notes run to one or two bullets each.
glydraw vs vinereg: 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.
vinereg
0.0ANALYTICS
Conditional density and log-likelihood fill out a vine copula regression package.
◆ Current state
vinereg fits D-vine copula-based regression models on top of rvinecopulib and kde1d, in Thomas Nagler's package stack. The January 2025 pair - 0.10.0 and 0.11.0 tagged the same day - adds a pdf() function and then fixes conditional density computation for discrete variables while requiring the newer kde1d. Release notes run to one or two bullets each.
◆ Where it's heading
Work has concentrated on evaluation rather than fitting: cll() in 0.9.0, pdf() in 0.10.0, and the discrete-variable correction in 0.11.0 all concern what can be computed from a model already fitted. Releases arrive in same-day pairs, and the notes are terse enough that 0.10.0 reuses 0.9.0's wording verbatim, describing pdf() with cll()'s sentence. Version floors also track the sibling packages - kde1d here, rvinecopulib in 0.8.3.
◆ Prediction
Given the shared release rhythm across the stack, the next entry is as likely to be a dependency-driven bump as a new function; the discrete-variable path is the one area these notes show as recently unstable.
Alternatives to glydraw and vinereg
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 vinereg.
lavaanExtra
SEM reporting helpers converging on APA output, one CRAN resubmission at a time.
ibis.iSDM
A raster-to-terra migration is the only readable change in a feed of merge notes.
anyflights
A nycflights13 generator whose recent work is all about the data being right.
stringx
A drop-in string API for base R, kept alive by upstream check failures.
healthyR.data
From a bundled hospital dataset to a live CMS API client.
See all glydraw alternatives → · See all vinereg alternatives →
Recent activity from glydraw and vinereg
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15d agoglydrawRendering options consolidated into a single style object
- 23d agoglydrawGlycan cartoons become ggplot2 geoms, legends and axis labels ⚡
- 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
- 1y agovineregDiscrete conditional densities fixed; kde1d 1.1.0 required
- 1y agovineregpdf() added for conditional density
- 2y agovineregBoost compile flag and a weights error fixed
- 2y agovineregcll() computes conditional log-likelihood
- 4y agovineregvinecopulib floor raised for RcppThread compatibility
- 4y agovineregcpit() fixed and external marginals allowed via uscale
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between glydraw and vinereg?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. 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 vinereg?
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 vinereg?
Top vinereg alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vinereg alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vinereg for the full list with editorial commentary on each.