[R] Popularity of R, SAS, SPSS, Stata...

Joris Meys jorismeys at gmail.com
Sat Jun 26 04:10:00 CEST 2010


>>I had taken the opposite tack with Google Trends by subtracting
> keywords
>>like:
>>SAS -shoes -airlines -sonar...
>>but never got as good results as that beautiful "X code for" search.
>>When you see the end-of-semester panic bumps in traffic, you know
> you're
>>nailing it!
>
> I have to eat those words already. The "R code for" search that showed a
> peak every December did not have quotes around it, so it was searching
> for those three words not the complete phrase. When you add the quotes,
> the peaks vanish.

Don't swallow! You're looking through search terms, not through web
pages. R code for regression, regression code R etc. are all valid
searches, no quotation marks needed.

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=code%20for%20r%2Ccode%20for%20SAS%2Ccode%20for%20SPSS%2Ccode%20for%20matlab&cmpt=q

This one is nice too. You can see that the bump in the autumn semester
for R is replacing the one for Matlab. Then in the spring semester
Matlab stays high but R drops. And both the US and India always have a
very large search index, whereas the rest of the world is essentially
worthless. Which leads me to the conclusion that : 1) The results are
probably coming from google.com, excluding local versions, and 2) in
the US (and India), statistics is mainly taught in the autumn
semester. Given the fact that daylight has a beneficial effect on the
emotional well being, the impopularity of statistics is likely caused
by unfortunate scheduling.

Forget Excel. Google rocks! ;-)

Cheers
Joris

>
> Once you go the phrase route, you gain precision but end up with zero
> counts on various phrases. I avoided that by combining them with "+" to
> get enough to plot. The resulting graph shows SAS dominant until
> mid-2006 when SPSS takes the top position, followed by R, SAS, Stata in
> order:
>
> http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22r%20code%20for%22%2B%22r%20m
> anual%22%2B%22r%20tutorial%22%2B%22r%20graph%22%2C%22sas%20code%20for%22
> %2B%22sas%20manual%22%2B%22sas%20tutorial%22%2B%22sas%20graph%22%2C%22sp
> ss%20code%20for%22%2B%22spss%20manual%22%2B%22spss%20tutorial%22%2B%22sp
> ss%20graph%22%2C%22stata%20code%20for%22%2B%22stata%20manual%22%2B%22sta
> ta%20tutorial%22%2B%22stata%20graph%22%2C%22s-plus%20code%20for%22%2B%22
> s-plus%20manual%22%2Bs-plus%20tutorial%22%2B%22s-plus%20graph%22&cmpt=q
>
> This might be a good one to add to http://r4stats.com/popularity
>
> Bob
>
>>
>>I see that there's a car, the R Code Mustang, that adding "for" gets
> rid
>>of.
>>
>>Thanks for getting me back on a topic that I had given up on!
>>
>>Bob
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org
>>[mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
>>>On Behalf Of Joris Meys
>>>Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 7:56 PM
>>>To: Dario Solari
>>>Cc: r-help at r-project.org
>>>Subject: Re: [R] Popularity of R, SAS, SPSS, Stata...
>>>
>>>Nice idea, but quite sensitive to search terms, if you compare your
>>>result on "... code" with "... code for":
>>>http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=r%20code%20for%2Csas%20code%2
> 0
>>f
>>>or%2Cspss%20code%20for&cmpt=q
>>>
>>>On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 10:48 PM, Dario Solari
> <dario.solari at gmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>> First: excuse for my english
>>>>
>>>> My opinion: a useful font for measuring "popoularity" can be Google
>>>> Insights for Search - http://www.google.com/insights/search/#
>>>>
>>>> Every person using a software like R, SAS, SPSS needs first to learn
>>>> it. So probably he make a web-search for a manual, a tutorial, a
>>>> guide. One can measure the share of this kind of serach query.
>>>> This kind of results can be useful to determine trends of
>>>> "popularity".
>>>>
>>>> Example 1: "R tutorial/manual/guide", "SAS tutorial/manual/guide",
>>>> "SPSS tutorial/manual/guide"
>>>>
>>>http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22r%20tutorial%22%2B%22r%20m
> a
>>n
>>>ual%22%2B%22r%20guide%22%2B%22r%20vignette%22%2C%22spss%20tutorial%22%
> 2
>>B
>>>%22spss%20manual%22%2B%22spss%20guide%22%2C%22sas%20tutorial%22%2B%22s
> a
>>s
>>>%20manual%22%2B%22sas%20guide%22&cmpt=q
>>>>
>>>> Example 2: "R software", "SAS software", "SPSS software"
>>>>
>>>http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22r%20software%22%2C%22spss%
> 2
>>0
>>>software%22%2C%22sas%20software%22&cmpt=q
>>>>
>>>> Example 3: "R code", "SAS code", "SPSS code"
>>>>
>>>http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22r%20code%22%2C%22spss%20co
> d
>>e
>>>%22%2C%22sas%20code%22&cmpt=q
>>>>
>>>> Example 4: "R graph", "SAS graph", "SPSS graph"
>>>>
>>>http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22r%20graph%22%2C%22spss%20g
> r
>>a
>>>ph%22%2C%22sas%20graph%22&cmpt=q
>>>>
>>>> Example 5: "R regression", "SAS regression", "SPSS regression"
>>>>
>>>http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22r%20regression%22%2C%22sps
> s
>>%
>>>20regression%22%2C%22sas%20regression%22&cmpt=q
>>>>
>>>> Some example are cross-software (learning needs - Example1), other
>>can
>>>> be biased by the tarditional use of that software (in SPSS usually
>>you
>>>> don't manipulate graph, i think)
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Joris Meys
>>>Statistical consultant
>>>
>>>Ghent University
>>>Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
>>>Department of Applied mathematics, biometrics and process control
>>>
>>>tel : +32 9 264 59 87
>>>Joris.Meys at Ugent.be
>>>-------------------------------
>>>Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php
>>>
>>>______________________________________________
>>>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.
>



-- 
Joris Meys
Statistical consultant

Ghent University
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Department of Applied mathematics, biometrics and process control

tel : +32 9 264 59 87
Joris.Meys at Ugent.be
-------------------------------
Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php



More information about the R-help mailing list