← Back to home
Comparison · Analytics

quantities vs watina

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

Shared themes:r-package

quantities vs watina: at a glance

Featurequantitieswatina
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesunits, measurement-uncertainty, error-propagation, r-packager-package, groundwater, hydrochemistry, database-client
Last editorial update1h ago5h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is quantities?

The glue package that makes R carry units and uncertainty through the same calculation.

quantities combines the units and errors packages into one class so values keep both their measurement units and their uncertainty through arithmetic, subsetting and data frame operations. Recent releases have been narrow: fixes to the covariance and correlation implementations, and performance work on the data.frame methods. Most of the release traffic is coordination with its two parent packages.

Read the full quantities trajectory →

What is watina?

A groundwater database client that has started doing the domain analysis too

watina is the R interface to the Watina groundwater monitoring database, and its history is mostly about making data retrieval correct: filter depths guessed conservatively when missing, spatial masking, aggregation methods per observation well, and a long series of fixes to keep the lazy database queries working across dbplyr versions. The most recent release moves past retrieval into interpretation, adding ionic ratio calculation and a Van Wirdum diagram to plot chemistry data.

Read the full watina trajectory →

quantities vs watina: editorial side-by-side

Q
quantities
ANALYTICS
0.0

The glue package that makes R carry units and uncertainty through the same calculation.

◆ Current state

quantities combines the units and errors packages into one class so values keep both their measurement units and their uncertainty through arithmetic, subsetting and data frame operations. Recent releases have been narrow: fixes to the covariance and correlation implementations, and performance work on the data.frame methods. Most of the release traffic is coordination with its two parent packages.

◆ Where it's heading

The design settled with 0.2.0, which made uncertainty unit-aware and added correlation and covariance support for quantities objects. Since then the package behaves like the integration layer it is — releasing when units, errors, dplyr or ggplot2 shift underneath it rather than on its own schedule. Several releases consist only of test repairs against upstream changes.

◆ Prediction

Expect the next release to follow a units or errors change rather than introduce new behaviour of its own.

W
watina
ANALYTICS
0.0

A groundwater database client that has started doing the domain analysis too

◆ Current state

watina is the R interface to the Watina groundwater monitoring database, and its history is mostly about making data retrieval correct: filter depths guessed conservatively when missing, spatial masking, aggregation methods per observation well, and a long series of fixes to keep the lazy database queries working across dbplyr versions. The most recent release moves past retrieval into interpretation, adding ionic ratio calculation and a Van Wirdum diagram to plot chemistry data.

◆ Where it's heading

The package is drifting from a database client toward a domain toolkit. Early releases fought the data layer — connection handling moved to inbodb, sorting semantics changed, defunct dbplyr calls worked around. Recent work assumes retrieval is solved and adds hydrochemical analysis on top, along with defensive handling for the physically impossible inputs that analysis exposes, such as zero conductivity in the warehouse.

◆ Prediction

Expect further chemistry analysis and plotting helpers rather than new retrieval functions, since that is where the newest release invested and where the accompanying vignette points.

Alternatives to quantities and watina

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 quantities or watina.

See all quantities alternatives → · See all watina alternatives →

Recent activity from quantities and watina

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

  1. 4mo agowatinaIonic ratios and Van Wirdum diagrams for chemistry data
  2. 1y agoquantitiesFixes covariance and correlation implementations
  3. 2y agoquantitiesFaster data.frame methods
  4. 2y agowatinaKSgeneral moved to Suggests to survive CRAN removal
  5. 3y agoquantitiesTest fixes for an upstream units change
  6. 3y agoquantitiesUncertainty becomes unit-aware; adds correlation support
  7. 5y agowatinaDataframe input restored after a defunct dbplyr call
  8. 5y agoquantitiesCompatibility fix for units 0.7-0
  9. 5y agowatinadbplyr 2.0 compatibility drops the need for a forked dependency
  10. 5y agowatinaSpatial clustering of wells and richer location attributes
  11. 6y agoquantitiesFixes uncertainty propagation for offset unit conversions
  12. 6y agowatinaSoil surface calculation fixed after a select() dropped the variable

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between quantities and watina?

Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. quantities and watina 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 quantities better than watina?

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

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

What are the best alternatives to watina?

Top watina alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "watina alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/watina-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.