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The R packages labelled and sjlabelled have highly similar descriptions, and I am trying to determine the relationship between the two and whether one does something the other cannot or does poorly. I suspect labelled may be a fork of sjlabelled since the author of the latter is listed among credits for the former. However, both have been updated within the last month, and I haven't yet found documentation which addresses the relationship between the packages, if any.

It doesn't look like either is formally part of the tidyverse family (I'd consider that to be a meaningful endorsement), but the logo and cheatsheet on the labelled github page suggest it may aspire to be.

From what I can tell, the "sj" in sjlabelled appears to stand for a nickname of the author, rather than a distinguishing feature of the package. I'm aware the same author is responsible for other "sj..." packages as well.

lost
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    I voted to close this because I feel it can either be heavily opinion-based (even if you aren't asking for opinions, just the facts), and is dangerously close to asking us to recommend packages. It's a tweener on both accounts, I admit. I encourage you to reach out to either of the authors, as one may have significant insight towards motivation, technical differences, setc. – r2evans Jul 14 '20 at 04:12
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    @r2evans This thread is very similar in form to [this extremely popular thread](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21435339/data-table-vs-dplyr-can-one-do-something-well-the-other-cant-or-does-poorly) which also solicits comparisons between two packages (I even borrowed some of the language). Responses there included evidence and examples beyond subjective judgements, and led to a very informative discussion. Correspondence with the authors does not replace this discussion. I'd encourage you to reconsider your vote to close, unless rules have changed since that thread was posted. – lost Jul 14 '20 at 04:15
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    Good points. Perhaps that one survived better because (a) it was 6.5 years ago, and (b) it was and is at the center of a polarizing discussion about dialects in R. While that second point clearly violates one of my arguments, it also was a very "frequent" debate back then (still is now, to a certain degree) because of the dialects and package-ecosystems presented. Perhaps I was hasty to VTC. (I don't have any input or an answer for you, unfortunately. Good luck!) – r2evans Jul 14 '20 at 04:31

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