[R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language

[Doran, Harold]

I'm a bit new with python, but have found it extremely easy to learn and
use. I have been using it to pre-process some text files that we often
deal with and need to be formatted in a certain way before they can be
used for statistical analysis in another software program.

I suppose there is one thing I've learned that can make python a bit
more useful than R. It is possible to use Freeze to make your python
programs stand alone executables. So, if you have any need to have a
non-programmer replicate something easily, you can write a python
program and even make a GUI with Tkinter that will work on any platform
(as I understand it). 

Just the other day, a colleague and I wrote programs to process a text
file. His was SAS and mine was python and both gave the same end result.
My python code was about 4 lines long whereas his SAS code was
ridiculously long and hard to understand. We settled a bet than python
is better for this kind of stuff.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch 
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Wensui Liu
> Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 6:28 PM
> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
> 
> Dear Experts,
> 
> Thank you so much for your opinions. I probably will go with python.
> 
> Following your suggestion, I started reading some tutorials 
> but have a quick question. In the sense of statistical 
> computing, is there anything that can be easily done with 
> python but not with SAS/R? Could you please give such an example?
> 
> Wish you all have a happy new year!
> 
> wensui
> 
> On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu <liuwensui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am 
> > planning to learn a scripting language.
> >
> > from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language 
> is worth 
> > to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most 
> likely, I 
> > will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will 
> > prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work.
> >
> > if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you 
> could point 
> > out a good source for learning as well.
> >
> > thank you so much!
> >
> > Have a happy holiday.
> >
> > wensui
> >
> 
> 
> --
> WenSui Liu
> A lousy statistician who happens to know a little programming
> (http://spaces.msn.com/statcompute/blog)
> 
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