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Comparison · Infra & APIs
fastpos vs qol
A side-by-side editorial comparison of fastpos and qol — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
fastpos vs qol: at a glance
What is fastpos?
Dormant three years, then a two-line release nobody using it would notice
fastpos finds the critical point of stability for a Pearson correlation, a simulation problem whose C++ implementation is the entire reason the package exists. Its substantive work concluded in 2022 with 0.5.0, the release prepared during R Journal review, which renamed the precision parameters, moved multicore work to pbapply and let users set corridor limits directly. After three years of silence, 0.6.0 removes an internal restriction to cpp11 and changes index_pop to an integer.
What is qol?
A SAS-to-R comfort layer that has quietly grown into its own dialect.
qol is a one-maintainer R package aimed at analysts moving from SAS: SAS-shaped verbs (compute., if./else_if., retain_value, do_if blocks), format-driven tabulation through any_table()/summarise_plus(), and styled Excel output as the default destination. Releases land roughly monthly and each one is large. The recent line has shifted from adding verbs to letting conditions be written as parsed character strings, which is the closest the package gets to reproducing SAS syntax inside R.
fastpos vs qol: editorial side-by-side
fastpos
0.0INFRA · APIS
Dormant three years, then a two-line release nobody using it would notice
◆ Current state
fastpos finds the critical point of stability for a Pearson correlation, a simulation problem whose C++ implementation is the entire reason the package exists. Its substantive work concluded in 2022 with 0.5.0, the release prepared during R Journal review, which renamed the precision parameters, moved multicore work to pbapply and let users set corridor limits directly. After three years of silence, 0.6.0 removes an internal restriction to cpp11 and changes index_pop to an integer.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a finished piece of research software in low-effort upkeep. The changelog's centre of gravity is the R Journal review process, and once that concluded the package stopped changing. The single release since is toolchain work of the kind that keeps a package compiling rather than anything a user would see.
◆ Prediction
Expect nothing beyond occasional compilation or CRAN-check fixes unless the accompanying paper draws requests for other correlation types or resampling schemes.
qol
0.0INFRA · APIS
A SAS-to-R comfort layer that has quietly grown into its own dialect.
◆ Current state
qol is a one-maintainer R package aimed at analysts moving from SAS: SAS-shaped verbs (compute., if./else_if., retain_value, do_if blocks), format-driven tabulation through any_table()/summarise_plus(), and styled Excel output as the default destination. Releases land roughly monthly and each one is large. The recent line has shifted from adding verbs to letting conditions be written as parsed character strings, which is the closest the package gets to reproducing SAS syntax inside R.
◆ Where it's heading
Three threads are visible across these releases. Syntax fidelity is the newest: ifelse_multi() introduced character-string conditions with SAS-style writing, and if./else_if. immediately picked the style up. Tabulation flexibility is the constant — any_table() gains per-variable statistic selection, nested variable combinations in brackets, vector order_by, compute support. The third is ecosystem plumbing the maintainer builds when a gap appears: file I/O in 1.3.0, a console message system, global style options, macro variables, and in 1.3.2 a code_statistics() script scanner. Renames to dodge data.table and dplyr masking recur often enough to be a pattern.
◆ Prediction
The maintainer flagged the new percentile behaviour as a first iteration that only works with few grouping variables, so a performance pass on it is the clearest outstanding item. Beyond that the character-condition syntax has reached three functions in two releases and looks likely to spread to the remaining filter-bearing verbs.
Alternatives to fastpos and qol
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 fastpos or qol.
mpactr
mpactr spent two spring releases normalizing case in metadata after users kept tripping on it.
surveytidy
surveytidy taught every dplyr verb to operate on a whole collection of surveys at once.
surveycore
surveycore declared its API stable with every survey design type covered.
PEIMAN2
PEIMAN2 cut its annotation database loose from its release cycle without breaking CRAN.
prospectr
prospectr spent its biggest release in years fixing spectra it had been quietly mangling.
Recent activity from fastpos and qol
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoqolifelse_multi() brings SAS-style string conditions to R
- 2mo agoqolcode_statistics() scans script folders; retain_stat() generalizes
- 3mo agoqolcompute. and recode. renamed to dodge dplyr masking
- 4mo agoqolFile I/O, a console message system and do_if filter blocks
- 5mo agoqolRow and column percentage keywords; reworked dummy data
- 6mo agoqolMacro variables, multi-file import/export and text helpers
- 10mo agofastposcpp11 restriction removed; index_pop now an integer
- 4y agofastposMulticore fix for pbmcapply; Windows limited to one core
- 4y agofastposR Journal review release: renamed precision parameters, manual corridor limits
- 5y agofastposMore informative test failures; interactive-only progress bars
- 6y agofastposMulticore support via the future package
- 6y agofastposExact-rho population generation and C++ progress bar fixes
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between fastpos and qol?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. fastpos and qol 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 fastpos better than qol?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. fastpos and qol 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 fastpos?
Top fastpos alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fastpos alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fastpos for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to qol?
Top qol alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "qol alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/qol for the full list with editorial commentary on each.