rjdqa
rjdqa keeps refining one screen: the seasonal adjustment quality dashboard
Comparison · Analytics
redist vs textplot
A side-by-side editorial comparison of redist and textplot — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
redist vs textplot: at a glance
What is redist?
redist keeps rewriting the sampler underneath a district-drawing API it has held stable since 4.0.
redist simulates redistricting plans via sequential Monte Carlo, merge-split MCMC and short-burst optimization, and it is the analysis tool behind a good deal of published districting work. The user-facing shape was set by 4.0.1's constraint interface and the split of metrics into the redistmetrics package; since then the changes are in the algorithms. The most consequential recent one replaces the SMC label-counting adjustment with a backward kernel that removes approximation error outright.
What is textplot?
A bnosac plotting utility in maintenance mode, shipping once every few years
textplot is the visualisation member of the bnosac NLP family, providing plot methods for dependency parses, biterm topic clusters, co-occurrence graphs, correlation lines and word embeddings. The function surface has been stable since 0.2.0 added textplot_embedding_2d in 2021. The 2026 release touches only documentation links and a vignette guard.
redist vs textplot: editorial side-by-side
redist
0.0ANALYTICS
redist keeps rewriting the sampler underneath a district-drawing API it has held stable since 4.0.
◆ Current state
redist simulates redistricting plans via sequential Monte Carlo, merge-split MCMC and short-burst optimization, and it is the analysis tool behind a good deal of published districting work. The user-facing shape was set by 4.0.1's constraint interface and the split of metrics into the redistmetrics package; since then the changes are in the algorithms. The most consequential recent one replaces the SMC label-counting adjustment with a backward kernel that removes approximation error outright.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is toward exactness and throughput at once — the new kernel is described as both eliminating approximation error and costing far less computation, and successive releases keep adding parallelism, most recently to the flip algorithm. Feature growth has moved into the optimization side, where short-burst gained multiple independent scorers and a Pareto frontier. The release notes are not a reliable ledger: 4.3.1 ships the identical text as 4.3.0.
◆ Prediction
Expect the remaining single-threaded algorithms to gain the chains-style parallelism that flip just received, following the pattern SMC established several releases ago.
textplot
0.0ANALYTICS
A bnosac plotting utility in maintenance mode, shipping once every few years
◆ Current state
textplot is the visualisation member of the bnosac NLP family, providing plot methods for dependency parses, biterm topic clusters, co-occurrence graphs, correlation lines and word embeddings. The function surface has been stable since 0.2.0 added textplot_embedding_2d in 2021. The 2026 release touches only documentation links and a vignette guard.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a settled package, not a developing one. Releases since 0.2.0 have been reactive: a topic-assignment bug, a layout argument, and now cleanup after the archival of a dependency it linked to. The cadence — four years between 0.2.2 and 0.2.3 — tracks CRAN housekeeping on the wider bnosac stack rather than any roadmap of its own.
◆ Prediction
Expect the same pattern: the next release will most likely be another CRAN-compliance pass triggered by a change in udpipe, BTM or another sibling package, rather than a new textplot_* function.
Alternatives to redist and textplot
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 redist or textplot.
epikit
epikit narrows to field-epidemiology helpers, handing proportions to a sibling package
SimInf
SimInf 10.0 turns an epidemic simulator into a tool that fits models to real time series
mutagen
A young package porting Stata's egen row-wise helpers to the tidyverse, one function per release
broman
A statistician's personal toolbox, growing one plotting utility at a time
qtl
R/qtl is in pure custodial mode: every recent release answers a compiler, not a user
See all redist alternatives → · See all textplot alternatives →
Recent activity from redist and textplot
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6mo agoredistParallel chains for redist_flip()
- 6mo agoredistPatch release reusing the 4.3.0 notes
- 6mo agotextplotDrop link to archived ggalt, guard vignette model download
- 10mo agoredistSMC backward kernel removes label-counting approximation error
- 2y agoredistMulti-objective short-burst search with Pareto frontier
- 3y agoredistredist_ci interface and faster loop-erased random walk
- 4y agotextplotDependency-parse plots gain a layout argument
- 4y agoredistredist_constr() unifies constraints and admits user-defined ones ⚡
- 4y agotextplotFix biterm topic assignment in cluster plots
- 4y agotextplotAdds 2D embedding plots
- 5y agotextplotMake example conditional on udpipe availability
- 6y agotextplotPlot functions become generic; igraph moved to Suggests
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between redist and textplot?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. redist and textplot 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 redist better than textplot?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. redist and textplot 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 redist?
Top redist alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "redist alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/redist-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to textplot?
Top textplot alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "textplot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/textplot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.