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From: jackg@hpisoa2.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Wanted SAS vs S comparison
Message-ID: <800001@hpisoa2.HP.COM>
Date: Wed, 23-Sep-87 13:45:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpisoa2.800001
Posted: Wed Sep 23 13:45:14 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 10:07:31 EDT
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Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
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As regards SAS and S comparisons:

I used both SAS and S when I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley.

S and SAS have different, almost counterposed philosophies, from
which follow their relative strengths and weaknesses.

S aims at maximizing flexibility.  It's interactive, so if you
need a p-value for a standard distribution, you can get it
immediately (rather than submitting a job).  It is fairly
easily extensible in two ways:  first, by writing macros that
use S's built-in functions; second, by actually writing new
functions for S.  The first method is quicker, but less powerful,
since the macros have to be interpreted into S functions.
Since S provides a fairly limited number of statistical routines,
the ability to extend it is very important.
Finally, S provides powerful graphic capabilities, which are
particularly useful in conjunction with methods like Tukey's
Exploratory Data Analysis.

SAS, in contrast, provides a huge and powerful assortment of
statistical tools.  It may well have everything you need, done
in the way you want it done.  It is not interactive, and it
is not easily extended.

Jack Gerson