Re: st: Data Management Tool

[n j cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

I am puzzled by this posting. I may well be mis-reading it.

You want to make a major decision, but you seem to expect
that simple, concise answers are possible to some very
broad questions (or if you expect very, very detailed
answers, then you are very optimistic). Also, it is not
clear what effort you have put in so far to learning about
Stata, so not clear what to take for granted in any reply.

I will add just two specifics. First, as you are coming new
to Stata, Stata's macro programming language is not the
thing to study. People have done pretty good things with it,
but in some ways it is an oddity. Mata is the underlying language of 
Stata into the future. So, the analogue of SPSS and Python is
not Stata and some other language, although C plug-ins are
possible. It is Stata and Stata's own language, Mata. But
Mata is not that exotic. The similarity to C is not accidental.

Second, you ask "At what point would you say SAS/SPSS is hands down the 
best solution...?" but there is a basic sampling problem here.
Those who think this -- even for specific problems -- are unlikely
to be lurking on this list unless they are spies or masochists.

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

Just Here

I'm looking into Stata MP as a data management system on linux for 3-5
users.

The main tasks of the data management system would be to query tables from
Oracle, mysql, create variables, run statistical analysis/modeling and
support fairly advanced reporting.

I've worked with SAS and SPSS, however this time around I'd be the one
paying for the license, and am being consciencious about shopping for the
best solution. The corporate reflex of "just writting a PO" for SAS or SPSS
server is not the chosen approach here.

- How does Stata compare as data management tool, specially as it 
interfaces
with databases?

- Is it a RAM-only system, or does it pipeline large datasets ?

- What are its limitations as a data management tool ?

- At what point would you say SAS/SPSS is hands down the best solution (if
at all)?

- Any opinion on its syntax/batch capabilities?

I know next to nothing about Stata's macro capabilities, and one thing I
like about SPSS is its new Python extensibility. Anything comparable 
with Stata ?

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