rollupTree
The recursive-computation engine under massProps grows the accessors its consumer needed
Comparison · Infra & APIs
prospectr vs slendr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of prospectr and slendr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
prospectr vs slendr: at a glance
What is prospectr?
prospectr spent its biggest release in years fixing spectra it had been quietly mangling.
prospectr provides the signal-processing layer for near-infrared and visible spectroscopy in R — Savitzky-Golay and gap-segment derivatives, standard normal variate, detrending, continuum removal, splice correction, plus calibration sampling algorithms like Kennard-Stone and DUPLEX and readers for ASD and BUCHI NIRCal instrument files. The May release is the substantial one: a long list of corrections to functions that were returning wrong or missing values rather than failing.
What is slendr?
Population-genetic simulation in R, opened up to selection and finally easier to install.
slendr specifies spatial and non-spatial population-genetic models in R and simulates them through SLiM or msprime, returning tree sequences that tskit then analyses. Two threads dominate the current releases: keeping in step with fast-moving backends, with SLiM 5.1, pyslim 1.1.0 and Python 3.13 now required, and reducing the setup burden that its Python dependency imposes. Version 1.5.0 adds ephemeral uv-based virtual environments, so init_env(uv = TRUE) can stand in for creating a permanent environment with setup_env().
prospectr vs slendr: editorial side-by-side
prospectr
0.0INFRA · APIS
prospectr spent its biggest release in years fixing spectra it had been quietly mangling.
◆ Current state
prospectr provides the signal-processing layer for near-infrared and visible spectroscopy in R — Savitzky-Golay and gap-segment derivatives, standard normal variate, detrending, continuum removal, splice correction, plus calibration sampling algorithms like Kennard-Stone and DUPLEX and readers for ASD and BUCHI NIRCal instrument files. The May release is the substantial one: a long list of corrections to functions that were returning wrong or missing values rather than failing.
◆ Where it's heading
The recent work is corrective rather than additive, and several items changed results silently before being caught. continuumRemoval() derived its convex-hull boundary offset from a fixed one-wavelength assumption that broke for fine-resolution spectra or non-nanometre units; cochranTest() passed an invalid argument name to prcomp() and produced incorrect principal component scores; readASD() silently dropped spectra in one branch of its text path. Two file readers were leaking connections. Alongside that runs a smaller thread of decoupling preprocessing steps from each other, most visibly detrend() gaining an snv argument so polynomial detrending can run without the SNV transform that Barnes et al. bundled with it.
◆ Prediction
The detrend() decoupling is the only recent addition and it fits a broader pipeline-composition direction, so similar separation of other bundled preprocessing steps is the plausible next move. The misspelled substraction argument now carries a deprecation warning, which schedules its removal for a future release.
slendr
0.0INFRA · APIS
Population-genetic simulation in R, opened up to selection and finally easier to install.
◆ Current state
slendr specifies spatial and non-spatial population-genetic models in R and simulates them through SLiM or msprime, returning tree sequences that tskit then analyses. Two threads dominate the current releases: keeping in step with fast-moving backends, with SLiM 5.1, pyslim 1.1.0 and Python 3.13 now required, and reducing the setup burden that its Python dependency imposes. Version 1.5.0 adds ephemeral uv-based virtual environments, so init_env(uv = TRUE) can stand in for creating a permanent environment with setup_env().
◆ Where it's heading
Since the 1.0.0 release added non-neutral simulation, the work has shifted from capability to friction. A large share of recent notes concerns Python environment handling, conda activation races on Windows, dependency pruning that made shiny optional, and argument names that misled users, as when gene_flow()'s rate argument turned out to mean total ancestry proportion rather than a rate. That is the profile of a package whose scientific surface is settled and whose remaining problems are the ones users actually hit.
◆ Prediction
Expect the uv-based environment path to move from fallback to default once it has proven itself, given the notes already describe an environment variable for making it so. The deprecated rate argument in gene_flow() is explicitly slated for removal in a future major release, which is the clearest signal here of what a 2.0 would contain.
Alternatives to prospectr and slendr
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 prospectr or slendr.
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
midr
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
See all prospectr alternatives → · See all slendr alternatives →
Recent activity from prospectr and slendr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoslendrEphemeral uv Python environments remove the setup step
- 1mo agoprospectrdetrend() can run without a prior SNV transformation
- 2mo agoprospectrContinuum removal, SNV and cochranTest corrected; readers stop leaking
- 7mo agoslendrgene_flow() separates migration rate from ancestry proportion
- 9mo agoslendrshiny made optional; SLiM 5.1 and Python 3.13 required
- 1y agoslendrconda activation reverted to a slower but reliable path
- 1y agoslendrBackends raised to SLiM 5.0, tskit 0.6.4 and msprime 1.3.4
- 1y agoprospectrread_nircal() sample ID field fix
- 1y agoslendrNon-neutral models arrive; slim() interface simplified ⚡
- 3y agoprospectrNon-UTF8 sample IDs no longer become NA
- 4y agoprospectrkenStone() bug fix
- 4y agoprospectrread_nircal() execution failure fixed
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between prospectr and slendr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. prospectr and slendr 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 prospectr better than slendr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. prospectr and slendr 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 prospectr?
Top prospectr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "prospectr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/prospectr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to slendr?
Top slendr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "slendr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/slendr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.