Date:         Thu, 9 Dec 2004 02:58:14 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Groeneveld <jim1stat@YAHOO.CO.UK>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jim Groeneveld <jim1stat@YAHOO.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: SAS faster than SPSS?
Comments: To: Benny Kong <kong1@UMBC.EDU>

Hi Benny,

Yes, I may have been spreading that rumour in the past too. I had quite
some experience with SPSS; the last time I used it was about 8 years ago
and it was vs. 8 or 9 (I believe) for Windows (under W95). After that I
started learning and using SAS (vs. 6.12 for Windows) in quite another
employment. SPSS is an interpreted language, SAS is being compiled. In SPSS
loop statements are being interpreted every iteration. That takes time. It
was my impression that SAS was/is quicker, but I never did any comparison.
What would be a minimal rough speed factor if you at least have some
impression? 10? I wouldn't know, but the impression holds.

Regards - Jim.
--
Y. (Jim) Groeneveld, MSc., Biostatistician, Science Team
Vitatron B.V., Meander 1051, 6825 MJ  Arnhem
P.O.Box 5227, 6802 EE Arnhem, the Netherlands
Tel: +31/0 26 376 7365, Fax: +31/0 26 376 7305
Jim.Groeneveld_AT_Vitatron.com (replace _AT_ by AT sign)
http://www.vitatron.com, http://home.hccnet.nl/jim.groeneveld

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 16:15:30 -0500, Benny Kong <kong1@UMBC.EDU> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I have heard that SAS is faster than SPSS, especially for processing large
>datasets. Using reasonably powerful hardware, what factor of performance
>increase should we expect when going from SPSS to SAS?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Benny