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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks. mapgl makes it much faster and removes some of the hacky components that were needed to get leaflet to avoid redrawing shapes. Appreciate your package!

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 5d

The code to make the demo is simple, especially if you already use ALARM data:

library(redistio)
nm <- alarmdata::alarm_50state_map('NM')
draw(nm, init_plan = nm$cd_2020, palette = wacolors::wacolors$rainier,
layers = list(County = 'county'))

More info: christophertkenny.com/redistio/

Interactive Redistricting

A point and click editor for districts built on shiny and mapgl. Users can draw districts and calculate standard redistricting metrics, like compactness or the number of administrative splits. Maps ca...

christophertkenny.com

Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 5d

redistio now uses @kylewalker.bsky.social's mapgl for interactive redistricting map editing!

redistio is an #rstats package that uses Shiny to draw redistricting maps locally.

Unlike other district editors, this provides access to our simulation algorithms, interactively!

Short demo:

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 6d

#rstats packages tinytiger and baf may again be seeing intermittent issues (again), as the Census Bureau has placed this redirect on their FTP sites.

Empty list responses may also be possible, as the download is (sometimes) capturing the HTML page...

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 6d

A pdf version of the slides are here: christophertkenny.com/drafts/2025-...

christophertkenny.com

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 7d

Presenting today!

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 10d

There’s been a lot of development, especially with the growth in the user community over that time period. But it would depend on how obscure your math is, I think.

There’s a listing of community packages here: typst.app/universe/sea...

Search — Typst: Universe

Explore packages and templates to take your documents to the next level.

typst.app

Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 11d

Yeah, I have fair point. I do all of my journal writing in Quarto, so that I can swap between formats, which lets me write Quarto => Typst. If a journal requires LaTeX, you just swap the engine and Quarto produces the LaTeX file.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

LaTeX isn’t going anywhere. It has a ton of users. But more and more, I think the only reason you would prefer LaTeX is some form of Stockholm syndrome. “I was forced to learn LaTeX so it must be good.”

If you’re starting from scratch, just use Typst. It hurts less and most places just want a pdf.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

I have a decade+ of LaTeX experience and ~2 years of lighter Typst experience. There’s no comparison: Typst is just better. It’s faster, cleaner, and easier to use. The core drawback has been including external PDFs and that is now supported in the newest Typst versions!

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

Typst threads this nicely by providing a syntax relying mostly on set and show rules, which are intuitive.

Crucially, this means journal submissions in Typst use: the same syntax you normally would use.

LaTeX journal templates instead introduce cls files with wacky syntax and new cases to handle.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

Typst is much more compatible with the researcher workflow: researchers want to research, not fight with typesetting.

Word is too general for technical fields, while LaTeX wants to image you’re doing obscure math or crazy chemistry with weird notation.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

Including basic header or footer features in LaTeX requires packages whereas the core Typst code has maybe 100x the features before you start adding extensions.

It renders absurdly fast and when it breaks, it shows you where, instead of giving obscure errors.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

This Reddit post (www.reddit.com/r/LaTeX/s/aq...) came across my feed.

I think the real question is: How can LaTeX compete with Typst going forward? LaTeX’s advantage now is size of the user base, not features. The next stable (0.14.0) version of Typst includes PDF embeds, the last missing piece.

From the LaTeX community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the LaTeX community

www.reddit.com

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

Congrats, you gave a great talk!

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

I love Quarto, but I think in this case it too comes with heavy dependencies that might not mix well with an ultra-lightweight solution

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 12d

If pdf is the only desired output, seems like a great case for writing the table into a Typst file and then rendering that.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 14d

It looks like that’s a question about styler, but the answer is using Air, if I’m not mistaken.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 14d

Has anyone looked into building a Positron extension to enable styling #rstats code with styler? (It's feasible since styler support was removed from Positron when Air was added.)

This also seems like it would be cleaner with the new equivalent of background jobs.

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 14d

Prepping to talk about developing R packages next Wednesday with the Princeton R User Group!

Registration info:
ddss.princeton.edu/events/2025/...

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 20d

Great talk today!

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Reposted by Chris Kenny, PhD

Kabir K. @kabirkhanna.bsky.social · 22d

NEW

Cost of living, calls for change undergird Mamdani lead in NYC

Voters call city unaffordable and prioritize someone bringing "needed change" over "right experience"

Trump also a factor, with majorities wanting next mayor to oppose him on ICE and National Guard

www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-new...

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 21d

I’m at #positconf2025! Feel free to send me a message or come up to me to talk anything redistricting, R, or quarto related!

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 23d

Update: As best as I can tell, this is caused by #rstats ggplot2 breaking binned scales in 4.0.0. ggredist errors because it uses palette::palette() which creates a vctrs vector.

If you use a character vector of colors, it doesn't error, but the plot appears to be wrong.

github.com/tidyverse/gg...

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Chris Kenny, PhD @chriskenny.bsky.social · 26d

But `backquote` looks better in GFM…

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