mice
mice can finally predict, not just estimate, from multiply imputed data.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
midr vs standardlastprofile
A side-by-side editorial comparison of midr and standardlastprofile — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
midr vs standardlastprofile: at a glance
What is midr?
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
midr explains black-box models by fitting an interpretable surrogate through Maximum Interpretation Decomposition — main effects plus second-order interactions, with exact Shapley values for the surrogate. Two months after its first CRAN release it can take a matrix response, which covers multi-class classification and survival models, and hold collections of fitted interpretations in midlist and midrib objects for comparison.
What is standardlastprofile?
A German electricity load-profile package added gas and doubled the market it serves.
standardlastprofile implements the BDEW standard load profiles that German utilities use to assign consumption to customers without interval metering. Until June it did electricity only. Version 2.0.0 added the gas side — the SigLinDe synthetic procedure across all 15 BDEW gas profile IDs — and gave electricity a new primary interface, slp_electricity(), with slp_generate() superseded but retained.
midr vs standardlastprofile: editorial side-by-side
midr
0.0INFRA · APIS
A black-box interpreter reaches CRAN, then learns multi-class and survival responses
◆ Current state
midr explains black-box models by fitting an interpretable surrogate through Maximum Interpretation Decomposition — main effects plus second-order interactions, with exact Shapley values for the surrogate. Two months after its first CRAN release it can take a matrix response, which covers multi-class classification and survival models, and hold collections of fitted interpretations in midlist and midrib objects for comparison.
◆ Where it's heading
The releases move outward along two axes at once: what can be interpreted, and how much of it fits in memory. Version 0.5.3 rebuilt the fitting path to avoid materialising large design matrices and added a save.memory option; 0.6.0 widened the response from a vector to a matrix and added parametric link functions. Class and argument names were shortened in the same release, so the package is still willing to break itself this early.
◆ Prediction
With multiple models now held in one object and visualisation methods for them, comparison across models is the surface most likely to fill out next — the collection classes exist but the notes describe manipulation and plotting rather than any comparison metric.
standardlastprofile
0.0INFRA · APIS
A German electricity load-profile package added gas and doubled the market it serves.
◆ Current state
standardlastprofile implements the BDEW standard load profiles that German utilities use to assign consumption to customers without interval metering. Until June it did electricity only. Version 2.0.0 added the gas side — the SigLinDe synthetic procedure across all 15 BDEW gas profile IDs — and gave electricity a new primary interface, slp_electricity(), with slp_generate() superseded but retained.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is converting from a dataset wrapper into a calculation library. Electricity profiles are tabulated values the package ships; gas profiles are computed from daily temperatures and a customer value through a coefficient-driven function, and the maintainer exposed the whole ladder — slp_gas() for the profile, slp_gas_kundenwert() to derive the customer value from a reference year, slp_gas_siglinde() for the raw h(theta) demand function so users can supply state-level coefficients, and coefficient and weekday-factor accessors underneath. The same instinct removed the built-in holiday table in favour of computing Easter directly, which lifted the date range cap from 2073 to open-ended. Deprecations are handled carefully throughout: renames keep working with lifecycle warnings, and the one hard break was already a warning since 1.1.0.
◆ Prediction
slp_gas_siglinde() was exported specifically so users could plug in region-specific coefficients such as Baden-Wurttemberg's, which points at state-level coefficient sets as the next thing to ship rather than leave to callers. The BDEW reference edition is now pinned to an Internet Archive permalink after the last one 404'd, so tracking edition changes is an ongoing maintenance cost.
Alternatives to midr and standardlastprofile
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 midr or standardlastprofile.
PINstimation
A market-microstructure toolkit that keeps adding estimators as the papers land.
nzilbb.vowels
A vowel-analysis package trimming dependencies after an email address got it archived.
emuR
The R half of the EMU speech database system, fixing what was quietly broken.
BAS
A Bayesian model-averaging package spending its 2.0 on memory, not methods.
tidyplots
tidyplots keeps rebuilding its own foundations rather than layering around them.
See all midr alternatives → · See all standardlastprofile alternatives →
Recent activity from midr and standardlastprofile
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agostandardlastprofileValidation against the SigLinDe pole; numeric variant accepted
- 2mo agostandardlastprofileGas standard load profiles arrive alongside electricity ⚡
- 5mo agostandardlastprofileFive 2025 BDEW profiles added, including PV and storage variants
- 5mo agomidrMatrix responses bring multi-class and survival models in scope ⚡
- 7mo agomidrFirst CRAN release: MID surrogate models for black-box explanation ⚡
- 7mo agomidrMemory-efficient fitting for large design matrices
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between midr and standardlastprofile?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. midr and standardlastprofile 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 midr better than standardlastprofile?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. midr and standardlastprofile 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 midr?
Top midr alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "midr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/midr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to standardlastprofile?
Top standardlastprofile alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "standardlastprofile alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/standardlastprofile for the full list with editorial commentary on each.