[R-sig-finance] R vs. S-PLUS

[David Kane]

Yasser El-Zein writes:
 > I am at a cross-road where I have to make a decision of going with R
 > or S-PLUS. I am mainly interested in S+'s finmetrics library or R's
 > Rmetrics. Can you please help me out by stating, out of experience,
 > the pros and cons of each?

Alas, I have never used finmetrics and have only touched on Rmetrics,
but I have used R in a production environment in the financial world
for 3+ years. There is no doubt in my mind that, for serious
statistical/computational work in finance, R is the best choice.

In terms of specific pros/cons, I would highlight the trajectory of R
over the last few years compared to the (much lower) trajectory of
S+. If R improves half as much (relative to S+) in the next 3 years as
it has over the last 3, the comparison between the two won't even be
worth discussing.

If you don't go with R now, you will someday.

Just my 2 cents,

David Kane