NEWS.md

In Avi-Kenny/simba: A Modular Framework for Statistical Simulations in R

SimEngine 1.4.0

Major changes

• Substantial updates to the package documentation, including both the vignettes and the function reference.

Minor changes

• Deprecated the use of the add_to_tid environment variable in run_on_cluster().
• Additional error handling to prevent invalid names.

SimEngine 1.3.0

Major changes

• Added an option for the summarize() function to calculate Monte Carlo standard errors and confidence intervals for all inferential summary statistics. For summary statistics meant to estimate a population quantity (e.g., the bias of an estimator), the Monte Carlo standard error quantifies variability due to running a finite number of simulation replicates.

Minor changes

• Fixed a bug associated with function scoping; see https://github.com/Avi-Kenny/SimEngine/issues/92.

SimEngine 1.2.0

Major changes

• Added the batch() function, which allows for sharing of data or objects between simulation replicates. Essentially, it allows you to take your simulation replicates and divide them into "batches"; all replicates in a given batch will then share a single set of objects. The most common use case for this is if you have a simulation that involves generating one dataset, analyzing it using multiple methods, and then repeating this a number of times. See the documentation for more info.
• Overhauled and simplified the interface of the summarize() function and added several summary metrics (correlation, covariance, n_reps); see the documentation for more info.
• Users can now run multiple simulation replicates per core when running code on a CCS using run_on_cluster().

Minor changes

• Added results of a call to sessionInfo() to vars().
• Changed sim_id to rep_id to avoid confusion with sim_uid.
• Removed the option for a user to specify a subset of sim_uids.
• Removed the keep_extra option from update_sim() and update_sim_on_cluster().
• Removed the .add option from set_levels().
• Added a constraint to set_levels() to prevent changing of level variables once they are initially set.
• Fixed a bug associated with functions that have a NULL environment (e.g. as.integer).
• Fixed bugs that previously prevented users from running a simulation with no levels.
• Various minor bug fixes.

SimEngine 1.1.0

Major changes

• Removed the add_* functions, as we ultimately deemed these unnecessary to the workflow: add_creator(), add_method(), add_constants(). Instead, functions declared in the parent frame of the new_sim() call are automatically added to the simulation object. It is now recommended that simulation constants are stored and referenced in the same way as levels; see "Advanced Usage" on the SimEngine website (https://avi-kenny.github.io/SimEngine/).

Minor changes

• Fixed a bug related to the use of closures added via add_method().
• Added more info in the documentation about how to properly load packages via set_config() (since this was a source of confusion among some users).
• Fixed a few minor issues with the documentation.

SimEngine 1.0.0

Major changes

• Initial package release

Minor changes

• None

Avi-Kenny/simba documentation built on June 11, 2025, 6:47 a.m.