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

[Ajay Shah]

On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 08:41:38PM +0000, Patrick Burns wrote:
> There was just a thread on R-help about R versus SAS.  Your
> summary that SAS' main advantage is better handling of large
> datasets is similar to the comments in that thread.  (There was
> some sentiment that SAS was better with mixed effects models,
> but that is unlikely to come into play much in finance.)
> 
> In the old days with S-PLUS, the rule of thumb was that you
> needed 10 times as much memory as your dataset.  By that
> standard you could handle a 200 MB dataset if you have 2GB
> of RAM.  R (and current versions of S-PLUS) are more frugal
> than S-PLUS was back then.  The 10 times rule was pretty
> much a worst case -- if you do simple things, then you are
> unlikely to use as much memory.

Hmm, so it'd be interesting to apply current prices of RAM and current
prices of R, to work out the break-even point at which it's better to
buy SAS! :-) Without making any calculations, I can't see how SAS can
compete with the price of 4G of RAM.

You do need 64 bit CPUs, though.

-- 
Ajay Shah                                                   Consultant
ajayshah at mayin.org                      Department of Economic Affairs
http://www.mayin.org/ajayshah           Ministry of Finance, New Delhi