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

[Gary Cable]

Hi David,

Don't want to start a "flame war" either... 

Just a couple of points to clear the air and provide an update to your
information since 2001...

Insightful bought the rights to S in January 2004.

The comments regarding R as being primarily academic are quotes from the
RMETRICS web site. When I worked for UBS, we used freeware, spreadsheets and
S-PLUS (which was then still owned by Lucent). While we had large sums
exposed to the use of these tools, I am only stating my preference for
commercially supported products. I understand that a number of groups have
been using R for commercial purposes; I am simply saying that I believe that
Insightful may offer a better alternative in the long run.

There have been and will continue to be many improvements to S-PLUS and
Insightful products, support and documentation since 2001 -- including
several books and numerous contributions by Eric Zivot, Doug Martin,
Alexander McNeil, Rene Carmona, Mark Salmon... and the list goes on.

My interest is primarily in promoting what I think is a fine set of products
from a committed organization, and it is not my interest to detract from R,
but to point out what I believe are compelling reasons to use S-PLUS,
S+FinMetrics, S+NUOPT and the rest of our products for commercial solutions.

Regards,

Gary Cable

 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Kane [mailto:dave at kanecap.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:36 AM
To: Gary Cable
Cc: r-sig-finance at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R-sig-finance] R vs. S-PLUS

Gary Cable writes:
 > I recently joined Insightful Corporation as Product Manager for Financial
> Solutions. I continue to hear a theme of R versus S and I find it somewhat
> curious. 

The theme that I hear most often is R versus S+, both being implementations
of the S language.

 > it can also be a weakness because it (IMO) does not represent a  >
commercial tool that provides me with stability, product support,  > and
professional services.

During 2001, I used both R and S+ simultaneously for some relatively serious
work. I found R superior then in terms of stability and product support.
Others opinions may differ.

 > R is primarily an academic solution. 

This is your opinion. Billions of dollars in real assets around the globe are
run using R every day. Maybe those managers are all idiots, but I doubt it.

 > Insightful owns the IP (the S Language) and is committed to its ongoing  >
improvement.

Does Insightful own the S language? I do not believe that this is true.

Dave Kane

PS. My purpose here is not to start a flame war. I can think of reasons why
someone in finance might prefer S+ to R --- easy data retrieval from Factset
and Bloomberg comes to mind. But there was no way that I could let a claim
about R being "primarily an academic solution" go unchallenged.