[R] Popularity of R, SAS, SPSS, Stata...

[Joshua Wiley]

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Ivan Calandra
<ivan.calandra at uni-hamburg.de> wrote:
> Bob,
>
> I have no idea whether it is realistic, but if you look for the papers that used R or SAS (or anything), you might get better results by searching for the way R and SAS are cited.

I wonder what the effects of different formatting and
reference/citation guidelines across disciplines would be on this.
For example, in psychology our style manual says:

"Reference entries are not necessary for standard software and
programming languages, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, Java, Adobe
Photoshop, and even SAS and SPSS.  In text, give the proper name of
the software, along with the version number.  Do provide reference
entries for specialized software of computer programs with limited
distribution."

Many (most?) the articles I read do not give any indication what
software was used, even as an in text citation.  Although I would hope
credit would at least be given for software like R, the 'specialized
software' wording to me suggests that the more common something
becomes the less likely it would be referenced.

Josh


>
> It looks to me that what I'm saying is not clear, so here an example.
> To cite R in a paper you have to write it this way:
>> citation("base")
> To cite R in publications use:
>  R Development Core Team (2009). R: A language and environment for
>  statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna,
>  Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org.
>
> So instead of searching for "R", searching for "R Development Core Team" might give better results. And same thing for SAS or any other softwares.
>
> If that doesn't help, just forget it!
>
> Ivan
>
>
>
> Le 20 juin 2010 à 21:07, Muenchen, Robert A (Bob) a écrit :
>
>>> I wonder if there are any capture-recapture type methodologies for
>>> estimating open-source software usage?  Another idea would be to
>>> combine with some other known numbers, e.g. book sales, conference
>>> attendance etc. You'd need personal information to link the data sets
>>> together.
>>>
>>> Hadley
>>
>> This totally cracked me up! I'm envisioning going into one of our
>> computer labs, tossing a net over an unsuspecting student, and then
>> tagging their ear with a code that represents which stat package they're
>> using. Then release and later recapture. What percent did we get? That's
>> what the profs I deal with do with animals to estimate populations.
>>
>> Conference attendance might be easy to get if I remember to contact the
>> people running them. Does anyone know how many we expect at UseR 2010? I
>> recall SAS conferences with 3,500 but data analysis is a tiny part of
>> that conference. I also heard someone say that they took it to Hawaii
>> one year to REDUCE the attendance as it had grown so large. Sounds crazy
>> to me, but if there are attempts to manage the figures, that could muck
>> up the interpretation. Well, all these approaches have their own
>> problems, so that's just another "limitation of the study." I think SPSS
>> Directions has more like 500 but it's all focused on some sort of
>> analysis.
>>
>> I did try to count books at Amazon and papers published via Google
>> Scholar. Those searches are devilishly difficult for SAS let alone for
>> letter R!
>>
>> An easy one to get should be number of list subscribers. I'll try to get
>> those figures. Anyone know it for R-help?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bob
>>
>>>
>>> PS.  It would be also interesting to see the contributions of the
>>> R-SIG mailing lists and other specialised R related mailing lists.  My
>>> feeling is that there is not a lot of overlap between the members of
>>> the ggplot2 mailing list and R-help.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair
>>> Department of Statistics / Rice University
>>> http://had.co.nz/
>>
>> ______________________________________________
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>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
>
> --
> Ivan CALANDRA
> PhD Student
> University of Hamburg
> Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Institut und Museum
> Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
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> +49(0)40 42838 6231
> ivan.calandra at uni-hamburg.de
>
> **********
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>
> ______________________________________________
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
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>



-- 
Joshua Wiley
Ph.D. Student
Health Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles