 |
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: st: The Future of Statistical Computing
On Jan 22, 2009, at 12:54 PM, Stas Kolenikov wrote:
"Stata was originally the product of Bill Gould and a small group of
economists from UCLA. It has grown to be a full-featured analytic
company. The distinctive appeal of the package is its expressive and
concise programming language, based on C. Stata's unusual strengths
are in discrete variable modeling, longitudinal/panel designs,
survival analysis, time series analysis, and survey statistics.
Like S–PLUS, Stata will have to deal with the growth of R in its own
field—programmable statistics and data analysis. Unlike S–PLUS,
however, Stata's peculiar strengths and language are different enough
from R to make it a viable alternative, particularly for
economists.Moreover, the Stata user community is intensely loyal, so
we should expect Stata to continue to grow at a respectable rate."
I like Stata like I like my Mac. StataCorp doesn't try to do
everything, but they do try to do things really well, and their is a
simplicity in Stata syntax that in reminiscent of Apple's drive to
simplify. And their service is on par with that provided by Apple for
their products. And yes, StataCorp probably prefers Linux boxes over
OS X, but that's OK. The loyalty is won and maintained, not a fanboy
characteristic.
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/