Distinction from simfinR

GitHubGeniusOverlord commented 3 years ago

Hi,

I was wondering whether you could leave a short note in the documentary about the distinction to the library "simfinR". What to expect from this one and why you chose to make it. This can be a crucial information for anyone trying to decide which package to choose. (Thats why its an issue)

Danke! Thank You.

matthiasgomolka commented 3 years ago

Hi, and thanks for the suggenstion.

To be honest, I don't recall all the details any more. I think, when I started working on simfinapi, simfinR was not on CRAN yet and I was planning to use SimFin data in a personal project I wanted to run for a couple of years. Thus, I wrapped the SimFin API myself.

From a quick glance over the simfinR codebase, I see the following differences between simfinapi and simfinR right now:

simfinapi leverages v2 of the SimFin Web API which was released last summer whereas simfinR uses v1. v2 of the Web API greatly improves the structure of response so that the result is easier to use. It also allows for more comprehensive queries if you are a SimFin+ user.
simfinapi should be faster because it
- queries the API in parallel if you specify a future::plan(),
- uses RcppSimdJson instead of jsonlite to parse the JSON response from the API,
- uses data.table instead of dplyr for internal data manipulation
simfinapi is potentially more reliable because it
- includes a range of tests on a range of different R versions and platforms
- it uses httr to handle all API returns safely
simfinapi might be more convenient to use because it includes functions to set the API key and the caching directory so that you don't have to pass these to each function call
even though I'm not connected to SimFin in any official way, simfinapi is mentioned on https://simfin.com/data/api

@msperlin, please feel free to comment if I overlooked something in simfinR.

msperlin commented 3 years ago

Hi @matthiasgomolka,

Looks great, specially the use of the v2 api. The more options, the better.

Best,

matthiasgomolka commented 3 years ago

@GitHubGeniusOverlord, I added a small section at the end of the GitHub README linking to this issue. I guess, this addresses your initial question? If not, please reopen this issue and elaborate.

GitHubGeniusOverlord commented 3 years ago

Hi @matthiasgomolka Thanks for elaborating! And thanks for the awesome package. If you ever feel like you cant maintain it, I would take some time.

matthiasgomolka / simfinapi

Distinction from simfinR #22