[R] The Wrong Choice: Locked in by license restrictions

[DivineSAAM@aol.com]

In a message dated 5/27/2003 7:11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, rpeng at stat.ucla.edu writes:

> originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci902076,00.html

I run MATLAB v6.5 Release 13. In my view, the benefit of Matlab over R depends on your objectives. I am now using R exclusively, except for solving differential and partial differential equations which R is weak in. If a comparable suite of DEQ solvers were available for R, then, in my opinion, R would be superior to MATLAB for many reasons (too numerous to list).

Both use LAPACK. Prof. Bates Matrix package is a useful complement based on LAPACK. From a computational statistics point of view, MATLAB cannot compare to R, R is much much better anf the support on r-news, well, there is nothing like it for MATLAB. So, unless you need to solve DEQs (IVPs and BVPs), PDEs, and now delay DEQs, use R.

I have tried to find the fortran versions of the MATLAB ODE suite but have not been successful. Also, looking at the MATLAB code has not been helpful because the solvers make extensive use of MATLAB built-ins. Don't get me wrong, MATLAB is an outstanding product...R is "simply the best" (Tina Turner)

The Serial Fortran Solvers for ODE Initial Value Problems by Alan C. Hindmarsh in Fortran (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/odepack/) would be very nice to have in R for scientific computing.

There are benchmark comparisions of MATLAB vs. S-PLUS in the s-news archives.

Livin La Vida [R]oca (tranlation [R]ockin and [R]ollin)

oscar