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R vs SPSS

7 messages · Vito Ricci, Laurent Valdes, Frank E Harrell Jr +4 more

Vito Ricci
# 
Dear all,

in last weeks you discussed about R vs SAS. 
I want to ask your opinion about a comparison between
R and SPSS. I don't know this software, but some weeks
ago I went to a presentation of this product. I found
it really user-friendly with GUI (even if I'd prefer
command line) and very usefull and simple to use in
creation and managing tables, OLAP tecniques, pivot
table.
What you think about?
Cordially
Vito

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Laurent Valdes
# 
Hi,

Le 25 nov. 04, ?? 13:15, Vito Ricci a ??crit :
I do not know R so much, nor SPSS.
Then I appreciate SPSS, because tools are very practical to use.
Every transformation, model analysis are easily made.

In the other hand, let me say it doesn't run on Mac OS X 10.3 (only on 
Mac OS X 10.2), then the software editor didn't manage to update its 
product. R's communauty does.

R is really made to make big computations on big servers, that's not 
SPSS cup of tea.

Laurent
Frank E Harrell Jr
#
Vito Ricci wrote:
What worries me about SPSS is that it often results in poor statistical 
practice.  The defaults in dialog boxes are not very good in some cases, 
and like SAS, SPSS tends to lead users to make to many assumptions 
(linearity in regression being one of the key ones).
Nassar
# 
Vito,


I use SPSS mainly for descriptive analysis (tables, graphs, factor
analysis..) and for data manipulation (you can see your data and
verify/control each step of your manipulation), mainly exploring the
analysis I need to develop in R (advanced clustering modelling,
simulations..).
SPSS huge worry : ITS VALUE.. Just actualize the annual fees ..
If you have a lot of data manipulation and table/easy graphs production, you
can consider it..
For statistical issues, spend the money into R trainings and R contribution


Best regards
Naji
-----Message d'origine-----
De : r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch]De la part de Frank E Harrell
Jr
Envoy?? : jeudi 25 novembre 2004 15:57
?? : Vito Ricci
Cc : r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Objet : Re: [R] R vs SPSS
Vito Ricci wrote:
What worries me about SPSS is that it often results in poor statistical
practice.  The defaults in dialog boxes are not very good in some cases,
and like SAS, SPSS tends to lead users to make to many assumptions
(linearity in regression being one of the key ones).
--
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University

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Ronán Conroy
#
Frank E Harrell Jr wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        
My worry about SPSS is that it encourages people to do analysis and 
dataset manipulation 'on-the-fly', without leaving behind an audit trail 
that can be used to reconstruct the dataset and results. Certainly, SPSS 
has a 'paste' button which allows you to save a 'syntax' file of 
commands, but most users appear to ignore it. And post-hoc editing of 
graphs and tables cannot be saved thus (unless I'm missing out something 
here).

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      root
    

    

      
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University

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        
Hear hear! I found that using SPSS left me knee-deep in un-documented
'intermediate datasets' and graphs I couldn't reproduce unless I spent an
age fiddling. And as for auto-labelled graph axes running from eg. -0.5-6.5
by units of 2, when I'd rather prefer 0-10... ugh, the memories are not
good. And if I see one more dissertation with dense, graphics-rich but
almost unreadable SPSS tables that have clearly just not been thought out...

For me it's not about features, it is the sloppy working styles SPSS
encourages. Take off the GUI and it's probably not too bad(!).

Stuart


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      Jim Lemon
    

    

      
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As I started out using SPSS when there was no GUI (in fact, no interactive 
interface at all), I automatically open up the syntax editing window when I 
have to use it. It's a workable text editor, you can run all or part of the 
code at will, and build up a code file in much the same way as R.

On the other hand, it does encourage the user who has not taken Pope to heart 
("A little learning...") to put their data through a high-powered analysis 
while convincing themselves that they know what they are doing. I confess to 
having done it more than once in the past. It was when I began reviewing 
other researcher's papers, and thinking 'This guy didn't know what he was 
doing.' and then, 'And you've done it too, brother.' that I resolved to be 
more circumspect.

Jim