[R] SAS or R software

Jonathan Baron baron at psych.upenn.edu
Sat Nov 20 13:11:55 CET 2004


There was at least one previous discussion of SAS vs. R on this
list.  I searched my archives (below).  The thread begins at
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp01/archive/5947.html
but then changes title.

Two arguments for SAS:

1. You may be working with other people who use it.  (That is why
   many of my colleagues use it, aside from inertia and [rational
   - since they have no choice] ignorance of alternatives.)

2. It used to be true, and it may still be true, that SAS
   compiles all code before running it, whereas R uses many
   compiled routines but does not compile the code you write
   yourself.  Thus, SAS may be faster for huge data sets, like
   census data.

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
R search page: http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/




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