Is R overtaking SAS at universities and colleges?
in [SAS]
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From: "A.J. Rossini" on 30 Jun 2008 13:34 On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 4:17 PM, RolandRB <rolandberry(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > That Sweave looks very interesting. And I have found the "rreports" > and "hmisc" packages which might do something like in powerpoint show. > And R seems extendable so maybe I could write such "packages" that can > produce the reports I want. And I like Latex for the formatting I like > the idea of including the code that actually runs to produce what is > in the document.It seems light years ahead of the current systems for > producing clinical reports. Look at the ODFweave package, which combined with Sun's ODF to MS Office converts Sweave-style documents to MS Word or MS Powerpoint. (or just use TeX/LaTeX, and the Sweave package combined with ones favoritelatex/tex styles). To bring this back to SAS, ODS should be able to do most of this, however, it probably requires a similar level of processing (RTF production rather than MS Word native format). Does anyone know? -- best, -tony blindglobe(a)gmail.com Muttenz, Switzerland. "Commit early,commit often, and commit in a repository from which we can easily roll-back your mistakes" (AJR, 4Jan05). Drink Coffee: Do stupid things faster with more energy!
From: RolandRB on 30 Jun 2008 14:30 On Jun 30, 7:34 pm, blindgl...(a)GMAIL.COM ("A.J. Rossini") wrote: > On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 4:17 PM, RolandRB <rolandbe...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > That Sweave looks very interesting. And I have found the "rreports" > > and "hmisc" packages which might do something like in powerpoint show. > > And R seems extendable so maybe I could write such "packages" that can > > produce the reports I want. And I like Latex for the formatting I like > > the idea of including the code that actually runs to produce what is > > in the document.It seems light years ahead of the current systems for > > producing clinical reports. > > Look at the ODFweave package, which combined with Sun's ODF to MS > Office converts Sweave-style documents to MS Word or MS Powerpoint. > > (or just use TeX/LaTeX, and the Sweave package combined with ones > favoritelatex/tex styles). > > To bring this back to SAS, ODS should be able to do most of this, > however, it probably requires a similar level of processing (RTF > production rather than MS Word native format). Does anyone know? > > -- > best, > -tony > > blindgl...(a)gmail.com > Muttenz, Switzerland. > "Commit early,commit often, and commit in a repository from which we > can easily roll-back your mistakes" (AJR, 4Jan05). > > Drink Coffee: Do stupid things faster with more energy! It seems that with R some good technology has gathered around it and has become available only recently. It's early reading for me yet but it seems like sas may well have been overtaken in the field of clinical reporting for both processing and presentation. My early analysis of the situation is that statisticians graduating from college will be more R savvy than sas avvy and will be more productive with R than with sas but they maybe lack the programming skills to get the most out of the R language. But when they enter the industry they will encounter a whole load of sas programmers and legacy sas-based reporting systems which will be a block to them. What they might rather see is programmers skilled in R who have built up reporting software like the "rreport" package that can help carry them forward in the R skills rather than push them back with sas. Trouble is I guess the people with the R skills enough to write reporting packages will be rare as it is only the statisticians who use R code and they are more concerned with the stats side and can not put the time in on the programming side and nor should they. That is for programmers to do. Good programmers should be able to learn new languages and I see it going the way that sas programmers will have to retrain in R to help the new breed of statisticians graduating from college. I'll try to do this but it will be hard for me as I am older (i.e. >50). But then I taught myself shell scripting a few years back so maybe there is life in the old dog yet. The effect on the industry will be huge if R becomes the dominant statistics language and from what I have heard, it already has. It will be a major cost and effort to change over all procedures and software to back up the statisticians to give them software that will help them rather than hinder them. And it is they, not the programmers, who should give direction in the field of clinical reporting. TeX or LaTeX seems to be able to produce nice output. It's seems easier than learning about ODS and templates and styles and whatnot. http://ftp.ktug.or.kr/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/ctable/ctable.pdf
From: Peter Flom on 30 Jun 2008 14:36 RolandRB <rolandberry(a)HOTMAIL.COM> wrote >TeX or LaTeX seems to be able to produce nice output. It's seems >easier than learning about ODS and templates and styles and whatnot. > TeX and LaTeX kick serious butt. With skill, you can produce *anything*. And it keeps on working forever (try running a 20 year old Word file....) and it works the same on IBM, Linux, Mac, mainframe and what-have-you. Heck, I stink at programming and I like LaTeX. Programmers should like it even more. Peter Peter L. Flom, PhD Statistical Consultant www DOT peterflom DOT com
From: ajay ohri on 30 Jun 2008 14:48 Hi List I do use R on and off using the R gui's which help me speeden a lot of modeling . You can click the *tag R* on www.decisionstats.com where I have written on them.(tag cloud is on the right) Take a look at the R GUI's , if u are thinking of transitioning. learning R syntax is more painful due to sheer number of functions (than the limited multi purpose procs available in SAS), but R online documentation on the sites as well download mirrors make it easy to install appropriately. as for reporting R graphics are definitely much superior, and I recommend downloading the R GUI called rattle for anyone . Just install it , and use it. The code gets auto generated so u learn basic R programming even fast. Yes , the transition is quite painful but two weeks with the R gui and search R web documentation can do a lot of work (merging/sorting big datasets very very fast is still SAS 's plus point) Regards, Ajay www.decisionstats.com On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Peter Flom < peterflomconsulting(a)mindspring.com> wrote: > RolandRB <rolandberry(a)HOTMAIL.COM> wrote > > >TeX or LaTeX seems to be able to produce nice output. It's seems > >easier than learning about ODS and templates and styles and whatnot. > > > > TeX and LaTeX kick serious butt. > > With skill, you can produce *anything*. And it keeps on working forever > (try running a 20 year old Word file....) and it works the same on IBM, > Linux, Mac, mainframe and what-have-you. > > Heck, I stink at programming and I like LaTeX. Programmers should like it > even more. > > Peter > > Peter L. Flom, PhD > Statistical Consultant > www DOT peterflom DOT com >
From: RolandRB on 30 Jun 2008 15:24
On Jun 30, 8:48 pm, ohri2...(a)GMAIL.COM (ajay ohri) wrote: > Hi List > > I do use R on and off using the R gui's which help me speeden a lot of > modeling . You can click the *tag R* onwww.decisionstats.comwhere I have > written on them.(tag cloud is on the right) > > Take a look at the R GUI's , if u are thinking of transitioning. > > learning R syntax is more painful due to sheer number of functions (than the > limited multi purpose procs available in SAS), but R online documentation > on the sites as well download mirrors make it easy to install appropriately. > > as for reporting R graphics are definitely much superior, and I recommend > downloading the R GUI called rattle for anyone . Just install it , and use > it. The code gets auto generated so u learn basic R programming even fast. > > Yes , the transition is quite painful but two weeks with the R gui and > search R web documentation can do a lot of work (merging/sorting big > datasets very very fast is still SAS 's plus point) I can see your point. If sas is gone then data will still need transforming and that will be huge amounts of data if lab data for clinical trials. With no sas database then I guess it will be Oracle or MySQL and the transformation done using SQL but I guess it can be done. I am so used to using sas now that it will be hard but I've used Basic and Cobol in the past and was able to do whatever I liked with the data I was working on. I guess there is a way. I wonder what statisticians fresh out of college and now working for pharmas think about this. Do you prefer R and get forced down the sas path? Would you prefer the programmers to help you with R rather than giving you solutions using sas? Do you think sas is a dead language for the analysis of clinical trials? |