[R] SAS or R software

[Jose A. Hernandez]

Hi Neela,

Just my ¢2 regarding the R vs. SAS issue. I started to use SAS since my 
undergraduate studies in 1993, and I am now a migrating to R user, and I 
hope not to ever go back to SAS.

My comments are:

- SAS is huge it takes over 1GB of space of my PC while R takes just 
over 100 MB, this days that may not be an important issue, but I'd 
consider this in your analysis.

- One of the things that bother me the most about SAS was their "system 
update" protocol, it was a mess (at least last time I tried downloading 
the updates, like 2 years ago). R has a great community and I love the 
update.packages() function.

- Regarding the large datasets discussion, I've had some experience 
working with mixed models on large dataset, and both programs end up 
taking a lot of time or crashing.

- The learning curve for a non-stats non-programmer guy was steeper for 
SAS, but again SAS was my first. However, R still does not come so 
naturally to me when I am coding, I have to look at my old codes, 
manuals and google. If I ever end up teaching applied stats I'll teach 
using R.

Sincerely,

Jose
... migrating to R ... and one of this days to linux

-- 
Jose A. Hernandez
Ph.D. Candidate
Precision Agriculture Center

Department of Soil, Water, and Climate
University of Minnesota
1991 Upper Buford Circle
St. Paul, MN 55108

Ph. (612) 625-0445, Fax. (612) 625-2208