[R] Another NEWBIE

[Spencer Graves]

      SPSS and SAS are data analysis packages with some scripting 
capabilities.  The S language is an object oriented programming language 
for statistics.  If you want to analyze data using traditional 
techniques, use SPSS or SAS or Statistica or Excel or you-name-it.  If 
you need to invent new statistical techniques tailored to some 
particular application, then you need S, and its most popular current 
dialect seems to me to be R.  There are doubtless things that SPSS, SAS, 
etc., can do that cannot be accomplished in R with 2 or 10 fairly 
obvious commands.  However, I believe that if R had been available 35 
years ago, SAS, SPSS, etc., would have been written in R (or in some 
other dialect of S not subject to the GNU license, which attorneys 
consider controversial and dangerous).  Beyond these generalities, I 
believe you can find answers to many of your questions with "the posting 
guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html". 

      hope this helps.  spencer graves

F.Kalder wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm a very fresh newbie to R.
>
>My first main question is, what the limitations of R are, what methods can R
>NOT do, esp. compared to (a) SPSS and (b) SAS? 
>
>The second question is, how do you handle the data entry, data management
>and data manipulation in R, to me it seems to be really complicated and
>confusing?! Are there a kind of "helping tools"?
>
>The third question: are there differences in linux and windows versions of
>R? At the monemt I'm running R on a WinXP System. Is this ok or would a
>Linux solutuon be the better way (for using R)?
>
>I hope my questions are not to lame ...
>
>
>Cheers, Frank
>
>--
>
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>PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>  
>