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Comparison · Infra & APIs

lintr vs wooldridge

A side-by-side editorial comparison of lintr and wooldridge — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

lintr vs wooldridge: at a glance

Featurelintrwooldridge
SectorInfra & APIsInfra & APIs
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesstatic-analysis, linting, code-style, native-pipeeconometrics, teaching-data, r-package, cran-maintenance
Last editorial update6d ago57m ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is lintr?

lintr makes the native pipe the default rule and clears out a decade of deprecations

lintr is the static analysis standard for R packages, and its 3.3.0 release does two things at once: it changes pipe_consistency_linter() to require the native pipe, following the Tidyverse Style Guide, and it completes a long deprecation program — six linters fully deprecated, several arguments defunct, and a batch of functions removed outright. The 3.1.x line before it was accuracy work and a maintainer handoff to Michael Chirico.

Read the full lintr trajectory →

What is wooldridge?

A textbook data package whose whole job is to stay installable, and whose releases prove how much work that is.

wooldridge ships the datasets from Wooldridge's Introductory Econometrics so students can load any of them with one command. The data has been essentially complete since the 7th-edition sets landed in 1.4-1; every release since has been about keeping the package on CRAN. The most recent tag exists only to re-run roxygen2 so that documentation URL fixes from the previous version actually reached the .Rd files.

Read the full wooldridge trajectory →

lintr vs wooldridge: editorial side-by-side

L
lintr
INFRA · APIS
0.0

lintr makes the native pipe the default rule and clears out a decade of deprecations

◆ Current state

lintr is the static analysis standard for R packages, and its 3.3.0 release does two things at once: it changes pipe_consistency_linter() to require the native pipe, following the Tidyverse Style Guide, and it completes a long deprecation program — six linters fully deprecated, several arguments defunct, and a batch of functions removed outright. The 3.1.x line before it was accuracy work and a maintainer handoff to Michael Chirico.

◆ Where it's heading

The package has been consolidating: overlapping linters renamed and merged, configuration validated up front, and an experimental R-script config offered as a possible replacement for the DCF format. Alongside that, a sustained campaign against false positives and false negatives in individual linters, which is where most contributor effort goes.

◆ Prediction

Expect the six warning-deprecated linters to be removed in the next release as announced, and continued movement on the R-script configuration format if feedback supports it.

W
wooldridge
INFRA · APIS
0.0

A textbook data package whose whole job is to stay installable, and whose releases prove how much work that is.

◆ Current state

wooldridge ships the datasets from Wooldridge's Introductory Econometrics so students can load any of them with one command. The data has been essentially complete since the 7th-edition sets landed in 1.4-1; every release since has been about keeping the package on CRAN. The most recent tag exists only to re-run roxygen2 so that documentation URL fixes from the previous version actually reached the .Rd files.

◆ Where it's heading

The maintainer has been systematically shrinking the package's attack surface for years. Dependencies used only for vignette examples were cut after one of them broke its API and triggered a CRAN removal notice; test infrastructure moved from testthat to tinytest and from Travis and AppVeyor to GitHub Actions; datasets were compressed by stripping attributes left over from the Stata imports. The stated goal, written into the 1.4-2 notes, is that this should be the easiest package the maintainer has to look after.

◆ Prediction

Nothing in the recent entries points to new data; the next release will most likely be triggered by another CRAN check failure or by a new edition of the textbook adding datasets.

Alternatives to lintr and wooldridge

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 lintr or wooldridge.

See all lintr alternatives → · See all wooldridge alternatives →

Recent activity from lintr and wooldridge

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 1mo agowooldridgeDocs re-compiled so the previous release's URL fixes take effect
  2. 8mo agolintrNative pipe required by default; six linters deprecated
  3. 2y agolintrFalse positive and negative fixes; new CRAN maintainer
  4. 2y agolintrExperimental R-script configs; up-front config validation
  5. 3y agolintrLinter renames for consistency; Super-Linter config discovery
  6. 3y agowooldridgeCI moved to GitHub Actions; live-data examples disabled
  7. 3y agowooldridgeDocumentation content and formatting pass
  8. 3y agolintrTest no longer leaves cache files behind
  9. 3y agolintrfunction_argument_linter() added; seq_linter() covers dplyr and data.table
  10. 4y agowooldridgeFour 7th-edition datasets added; tests moved to tinytest
  11. 4y agowooldridgeVignette scope cut to drop heavy and API-unstable dependencies
  12. 7y agowooldridgeVignette repaired after an upstream API rename

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between lintr and wooldridge?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. lintr and wooldridge 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 lintr better than wooldridge?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. lintr and wooldridge 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 lintr?

Top lintr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "lintr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/lintr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to wooldridge?

Top wooldridge alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "wooldridge alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/wooldridge for the full list with editorial commentary on each.