[R] FDA and ICH Compliance of R

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Antonia Drugica wrote:

> Concerning the debate about SAS vs. S/R I think that a multiple approach
> has to be taken. As far as I observed it many Pharmas are going to use more
> than one Spftwarepackage. We all now that S SAS SPSS and so on have their
> advantages and disatvantages. I think a modern statistician has to know at
> least three or four softwarepackages so that he can decide which problem
> can be solved by which software.

Really?  I think very few people `know' even one in any depth, and the
phrase `jack of all trades and master of none' springs to mind.  A decade
or so ago we switched the vast majority of our teaching to one (S-PLUS) to
try to ensure that during their year our Master's students achieved a
reasonable mastery of some tool, and we no longer cover SAS nor SPSS.
(And given that my wife provides help in all three and sometimes Stata as 
part of her job, I hear a lot about disadvantages.)  Even our social 
scientists have recently requested a move from SPSS to R for their 
practical classes.

Whereas there are whole swathes of modern statistics that would be very
hard to cover in SAS or SPSS (some of it in our first undergraduate
practical course, which is now using R), I doubt that the advantages of
SAS and SPSS are known to `all' the readers of this list, so perhaps you
could enlighten us (including me)?  And, importantly, please use a
signature wth your real name and affiliation so we know your credentials.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595