[R] things that are difficult/impossible to do in SAS or SPSSbut simple in R

Clint Bowman clint at ecy.wa.gov
Thu Jan 17 18:32:40 CET 2008


So how does SAS compare with one of the specialty languages such as perl.
I've found the combination of perl and R to work quite satisfactorily (as
long as I don't confuse the syntax and functions available in each.)

Clint

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On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, Walter Paczkowski wrote:

> Good morning,
>
> I use SAS and R/S-Plus as my primary tools so I have a lot of experience with these programs.  By far and away, SAS is superior for handling the "messy" datasets, but also the very large ones.  I work at times with datasets in the hundreds of thousands (and on occasion, millions) of records.  SAS, and especially PROC SQL, are invaluable for this.  But once I get to datasets manageable for R/S-Plus, then I ship to these tools for the programming and graphics.  This seems to work great.
>
> Walt Paczkowski
> Data Analytics Corp.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Rob Robinson <rob.robinson at bto.org>
> >Sent: Jan 17, 2008 4:31 AM
> >To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> >Subject: Re: [R] things that are difficult/impossible to do in SAS or	SPSSbut simple in R
> >
> >
> >I wonder if those who complain about SAS as a programming environment have
> >discovered SAS/IML which provides a programming environment akin to Matlab
> >which is more than capable (at least for those problems which can be treated
> >with a matrix like approach). As someone who uses both SAS and R - graphical
> >output is so much easier in R, but for handling large 'messy' datasets SAS
> >wins hands down...
> >Cheers
> >Rob
> >
> >*** Want to know about Britain's birds? Try  www.bto.org/birdfacts ***
> >
> >Dr Rob Robinson, Senior Population Biologist
> >British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU
> >Ph: +44 (0)1842 750050         E: rob.robinson at bto.org
> >Fx: +44 (0)1842 750030         W: http://www.bto.org
> >
> >==== "How can anyone be enlightened, when truth is so poorly lit" =====
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org
> >> [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey J. Hallman
> >> Sent: 16 January 2008 22:38
> >> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> >> Subject: Re: [R] things that are difficult/impossible to do
> >> in SAS or SPSSbut simple in R
> >>
> >> SAS has no facilities for date arithmetic and no easy way to
> >> build it yourself.  In fact, that's the biggest problem with
> >> SAS: it stinks as a programming environment, so it's always
> >> much more difficult than it should be to do something new.
> >> As soon as you get away from the canned procs and have to
> >> write something of your own, SAS falls down.
> >>
> >> I don't know enough about SPSS to comment.
> >> --
> >> Jeff
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
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> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> >>
> >
> >______________________________________________
> >R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> >and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>




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