runners-up.md

May 9, 2016 ยท View on GitHub

Runners Up

We know of people that recommend these packages. We haven't included them in our main list because they do not meet one or more of our criteria for a useful R package:

  • The code in the package runs fast, with few errors.
  • The code in the package has an intuitive syntax that is easy to remember.
  • The package plays well with other packages; you do not need to munge your data into new forms to use the package.
  • The package is widely used and recommended by its users.
  • The package has a development website, or series of vignettes, that make the package easy to learn.
  • The package is developed in the open (e.g. on Github or RForge).
  • The package uses tests to ensure that it will be stable and bug free well into the future.
  • The package is stable and available from CRAN, or we are personally involved with the package and committed to its development.

Import

  • rio
  • XML - parse and generate xml from R.
  • xlsx - Read and write Microsoft Excel files.

Tidy

  • chron - Objects to handle date and times. No website. No vignette.
  • reshape2 - Superceded by tidyr.

Visualize

  • scales
  • extrafont - import fonts for graphs. No tests.
  • ggstat
  • gggeom
  • manipulate. No tests.
  • gridBase - integrates base and grid graphics. No website. Not DS.
  • maps - utilities for maps. No website. No vignette.
  • labeling - axis labeling algorithms. No website. No vignette.
  • gtable - tools for laying out plots. No website. No vignettes. Not for DS.
  • gridExtra - extensions for grid graphics. Not for DS.
  • scales - Utilities for mapping data to visual aesthetics in plots. No website. No vignette. Not for DS.

Transform

  • gdata - tools for data manipulation. No website.
  • plyr - functions for groupwise operations. Most used parts superceded by dplyr.

Model

  • arm - Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. No website. No vignette.
  • nlme - Linear and Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models. No website.
  • kernlab - Kernel-based machine learning methods. No website.
  • mgcv - generalized additive models. No website. No vignette.
  • boot - bootstrapping methods. No site.
  • irlba - SVD, PCA and Symmetric Eigendecomposition for large, sparse matrices. No vignette.
  • e1071 - svm() function for support vector machines. No website.
  • lmtest - tools to test linear regression models. No website.
  • acepack - ACE and AVAS methods for choosing regression transformations. No website. No vignette.
  • nnet - neural networks with a single hidden layer. No website. No vignette.
  • sandwich - Model-robust standard error estimators for cross-sectional, time series, and longitudinal data. No website.
  • Formula - Infrastructure for multipart modelling formulas. No website.
  • MASS - functions and data sets from Modern Applied Statistics with S. No development website. No vignette.
  • caTools - tools for moving window statistics. No Website. No Vignette.
  • quantreg - quantile regression. No Website.

Infer

Communicate

  • stargazer - Turns R objects into customized tables. No public development page.
  • countdown - countdown timer for R Markdown documents. Not on Cran. No vignette.

Automate

  • openssl - Encryption, Signatures and Certificates Based on OpenSSL. Not for DS.
  • RCurl - libcurl interface for HTTP requests. Not for DS.

Program

  • httpuv - tools for HTTP and WebSocket requests. Not DS.
  • registry - tools for defining and using registries. No website. Not DS.
  • pkgmaker - Utilities for making R packages. Not DS.
  • quadprog - tools for solving quadratic programming. No dev site.
  • doParallel - parallel processing when combined with the foreach package. No website.
  • withr - run code with safely and temporarily modified global state. Not DS.
  • whisker - {{mustache}} templating for R. Not DS.
  • gtools - Various R Programming Tools. No website. No vignette.
  • assertthat - tools for more friendly error messages. Not DS.
  • lazyeval - tools to program with non-standard evaluation. Not for DS.
  • iterators - Support for iterating operations. No website.
  • memoise - Cache the results of a function so that when you call it again with the same arguments it returns the pre-computed value. Not for DS.
  • RcppEigen - interface for Eigen C++ library for linear algebra. Not for DS.
  • foreach - foreach looping. Now Website.
  • evaluate - Parsing and evaluation tools that make it easy to recreate the command line behaviour of R. Not for DS.
  • BH - Boost C++ templates for R. Not for DS.
  • rJava - Low-Level R to Java Interface. Not for DS.
  • bitops - functions for bitwise operations on integer vectors. No website. No vignette. Not for DS.
  • curl - An R connection interface to libcurl. Not for DS.
  • mime - Map Filenames to MIME Types. Not for DS.
  • digest - Create Compact Hash Digests of R Objects. Not for DS.
  • snow - simple parallel computing in R. No website.
  • Rth - Parallel processing with R through Thrush. Not on CRAN.

Data

  • datasets - small data sets
  • HistData - small data sets of historical importance