SAS or R software

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.

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).

So if you want to do well documented data manipulation and clear
and compact tables go for SAS.

If you want to do statistical analyses and graphics (in finite time)
go for R.

Bendix Carstensen
----------------------
Bendix Carstensen
Senior Statistician

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.