Going the other way, I wish stata would allow me to use disk as RAM, so
that the limit on the size of my (single) dataset would be my total
diskspace (some 200 GB counting the disks I have on the Unix cluster)
rather than the RAM on the largest machine in the cluster (only 12 GB).
Although I have no plans to use a 200 GB file, I have had need of more
than 12GB, and I have had to make tough choices (and some complex
time-consuming runs) to get it under 12GB--not to mention how popular this
makes me to all the other people in my cluster who need the same machine
at the same time.
Sam
On Tue, 23 May 2006, Joseph Coveney wrote:
> Mark Orr wrote (excerpted):
>
> > I think that Stata loads the dataset into memory in order to allow certain
> > efficiencies (e.g., vectorized operations) that wouldn't be possible
> > otherwise--i.e., operating on the dataset file one observation at a time.
> NO, R CAN DO THIS.
>
> > I'm curious: does *any* data-management/statistical analysis software
> > package load more than one entire dataset in memory at one time? Maybe
> > Raphael meant: to have more than one dataset file open for manipulation
> > at
> > a time, such as what SAS does or perhaps what relational database
> > management
> > systems do. And, for that matter, you can emulate the same from within
> > Stata, using the -odbc- suite of commands and SQL. Unlike SAS, you
> > cannot,
> > however, analogously invoke SQL statements on native Stata dataset files.
> > But, as Michael mentioned, it's not certain that you would frequently need
> > to, given Stata's repertoire of data-management commands.
>
> R, S-PLUS MAKE THIS MUCH SIMPLER. OF COURSE, I PREFER STATA FOR SOME
> WORK, R FOR OTHER WORK. BOTH HAVE UNIQUE STRENGTHS.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm afraid that you lost me as to the meaning of your comments.
>
> I thought that R and S-Plus also load one dataset completely into memory,
> just as does Stata, so I'm not sure what you mean by, "No, R can do this."
>
> Also, I'm not sure what you mean by, "R, S-Plus make this much simpler."
> What is it in the paragraph above that they make much simpler? Use of ODBC
> application interfaces?
>
> Joseph Coveney
>
>
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