[R] How to Describe R to Finance People

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

One other important point in "selling" R is that its use results in 
analysts doing a better job.  I find that many SAS users for example 
routinely assume that all covariable effects are linear because it is 
messy to do otherwise in SAS.  S has a natural modeling language for 
flexible nonlinear effects (primarily because predictors can be 
automatically-generated matrices containing basis functions) in addition 
to computing dummy variables "secretly" and computing product terms for 
interactions on the fly.

I prefer open source software for many reasons, but a major reason that 
R is superior for statistical analysis and graphics today is its 
functionality and extendibility.  This leads to better analyses.

Frank Harrell