slightly OT - R vs. matlab

Hi

Was discussing this with a colleague today and wondering what other 
people thought - how popular is R (or S-Plus) in quantitative finance 
compared to matlab?  (I know SAS probably beats both of them for 
non-computational finance work).  Any strong opinions on why R is 
better/worse than matlab?

FYI: I asked the very same question on the r-help mailing list
approx. a month ago.  You will find a lot of good opinions about this
in the archives of that list.

Best,

Tamas

Tam?s K. Papp
E-mail: tpapp@axelero.hu (preferred, especially for large messages)
        tpapp@westel900.net
Please try to send only (latin-2) plain text, not HTML or other garbage.

In my experience versions of S are much more prevalent
than matlab in equities, while matlab is more prevalent than
S in fixed income.  However, S does seem to be making
some inroads into fixed income.

I can explain this by observing that

1)  fixed income is mathematical as well as statistical.

2)  matlab was available before S.

3)  for reasons way beyond my capabilities, it has only been
in recent years that more than a handful of people have thought
that finance is a statistical subject.

This depends on the generally accepted axiom:
matlab is better suited to mathematics, S is better suited to statistics.


Patrick Burns

Burns Statistics
patrick@burns-stat.com
+44 (0)20 8525 0696
http://www.burns-stat.com
(home of S Poetry and "A Guide for the Unwilling S User")

Hi

Was discussing this with a colleague today and wondering what other 
people thought - how popular is R (or S-Plus) in quantitative finance 
compared to matlab?  (I know SAS probably beats both of them for 
non-computational finance work).  Any strong opinions on why R is 
better/worse than matlab?

thanks,

Jim M

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