SAS or R software
BXC (Bendix Carstensen) wrote:
Two major advantages of SAS that seems to have been overlooked in the previous replies are: 1) The data-set language is SAS for data manipulation is more human-readable than R-code in general. R is not a definite write-only laguage as APL, but in particular in datamanipulation it is easy to write code that is impossible to decipher after few weeks. You can also produce unreadable code in SAS, but it generally takes more of an effort. Thus: Data manupulation is easier to document in SAS than in R.
I agree with the readability of data manipulation code, especially for novice users. As far as functionality for data manipulation is concerned, R has more flexibility and is faster to program once one has experience. I do think that learning data manipulation techniques in R takes a while.
2) proc tabulate.
This procedure enables you to do extensive sensible tabulation
of your data if you are prepared to read the manual.
(This is not a product of the complexity of the software,
but of the complexity of the tabulation features).
Compared to this only rudimentay tools exist in R (afaik).
I could not disagree more with that statement. Look for example at http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/pub/Main/StatReport/summary.pdf . With R you can customize tables by specifying your own function for computing any statistic of interest. Let's see how to use PROC TABULATE to display stratified Kaplan-Meier 4-year survival estimates along with median and median life length, not to mention match the fine control of formatting available using the combination of R and LaTeX.
So if you want to do well documented data manipulation and clear and compact tables go for SAS.
Readability is different from being well-documented. And for clear and compact tables, R is the winner hands down. Frank Harrell
If you want to do statistical analyses and graphics (in finite time) go for R. Bendix Carstensen ---------------------- Bendix Carstensen Senior Statistician
Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine
Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University