Date:         Wed, 19 Dec 2001 11:17:30 -0800
Reply-To:     Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "David L. Cassell" <Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: "R" the end of SAS?
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Peter Flom <peter.flom@NDRI.ORG> replied [in part]:
> As a user of both SAS and S-Plus, I don't think that they are threats
to each other at all.
> The two have very different strengths and weaknesses, and, I think,
very different markets.

I agree completely.

> Personally, I am disheartened by what I see as a decreased emphasis on
the STAT part of SAS.

I see it as a marketing de-emphasis only.  The increased number of PROCs
in STAT and ETS [and
elsewhere, like in EIS], the increased facilities of IML, etc. suggest
to me that there is still
very active work on the stat side of things.  It's just that the company
wants to be known as
more than a stat package.

> But SAS is MUCH better than S-Plus at reading complex and strange
data.  It's got better file
> management, too.   And non-graphical output is better in SAS.

Agreed.  I really don't like the total lack of realistic database
management in S-Plus.
I end up storing everything in SAS datasets, then transferring to S-Plus
and back when
I want to use it.  Yuck.

> S-Plus is easier to write routines in, and has MUCH better and easier
to use graphics.

I agree completely on the second part, and mostly on the first part.  If
only S-Plus handled
large datasets better!  Despite their claims, I think that it got slower
on big datasets in
the current version than it used to be [which wasn't all that swell to
begin with].  We tend to
use S-Plus for some research, with small test sets, but then the big
stuff has to be re-written
to run in SAS.

I think there's a market for SAS, and S-Plus, and R, and a host of other
packages.  It's not
as if there are only 12 statisticians in the world.  And it's not as if
all people want the
same thing out of their stat package.

Hey Peter, have a good holiday, and may next year go better than this
one.

David
--
David Cassell, CSC
Cassell.David@epa.gov
Senior computing specialist
mathematical statistician