What’s New in R: October 6, 2025
Welcome to this week’s edition of What’s New in R! This week, we’re featuring the major ggplot2 4.0.0 release, a package for accessing professional volleyball data, and a tutorial on data validation techniques. Let’s dive in!
ggplot2 4.0.0
The highly anticipated {ggplot2} 4.0.0 has been released with significant changes under the hood. This major version update includes a ton of internal improvements and modernizations that should make {ggplot2} faster and more consistent. While many of the changes are internal and won’t affect day-to-day usage, there are also some user-facing updates that could impact existing code. If you’re a {ggplot2} user, definitely check out the full release notes to understand what’s new and what might affect your workflows.
rvolleydata
The {rvolleydata} package, developed by David Awosoga, Matthew Chow, and Ryan Du, provides access to data from professional volleyball leagues in North America. This specialized package makes it easy for volleyball analysts, researchers, and fans to extract and work with professional volleyball statistics and match data. Whether you’re conducting sports analytics research or building volleyball-related applications, this package offers a streamlined way to access comprehensive volleyball datasets.
Reproducible Data Science in R: Say the quiet part out loud with assertions
Anthony Martinez from the US Geological Survey demonstrates how to implement data validation techniques using assertions in R. This tutorial shows how to write code that explicitly checks whether your data meets expected structural requirements, helping catch data quality issues early in your analysis pipeline. The post covers practical examples of using packages like checkmate and validate to build robust data validation workflows that make your assumptions explicit and your code more reliable.
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Got any ideas for resources I should feature in future issues of What’s New in R? Leave a comment below!
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