[R] SAS or R software

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

neela v wrote:
> Hi all there
>  
> Can some one clarify me on this issue, features wise which is better R or SAS, leaving the commerical aspect associated with it. I suppose there are few people who have worked on both R and SAS and wish they would be able to help me in deciding on this.
>  
> THank you for the help

I estimate that SAS is about 11 years behind R in statistical analysis 
and graphics capabilities, and that gap is growing.  Also, code in SAS 
is not peer-reviewed as is code in R.  SAS has advantages in two areas: 
dealing with massive datasets (generally speaking, > 1GB) and getting 
more accurate P-values in mixed effect models.

See http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/pub/Main/RS/sintro.pdf for 
one comparison of SAS and S on technical features.

There are companies whose yearly license fees to SAS total millions of 
dollars.  Then those companies hire armies of SAS programmers to program 
an archaic macro language using old statistical methods to produce ugly 
tables and the worst graphics in the statistical software world.

Frank Harrell
SAS User, 1969-1991
-- 
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University