I agree with Martin. However, I continue to use R for certain tasks that I can't do (yet) in Stata, eg, Bayesian model averaging and some of the regression modeling approaches developed by Frank Harrell and Ewout Steyerberg.
Scott Millis
--- On Sun, 7/26/09, Martin Weiss <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Martin Weiss <[email protected]>
> Subject: AW: st: AW: Switching from SPSS to Stata
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Sunday, July 26, 2009, 10:01 AM
>
> <>
>
> R is similar in that you can inspect the underlying code
> which is also true
> of large parts of Stata. If my econometrics teacher had
> taught/pushed R for
> several semesters, who knows what I might be using today.
> But he did not. So
> I tried to learn R on my own during my early days as a PhD
> student, with the
> help of some expensive books and the pdf manuals, and had
> to learn the hard
> way that only the licence for R is free, not the insight
> how to operate the
> thing.
>
> I found data handling in R particularly difficult, and
> Stata made that a
> breeze :-) It also provided me with dialog boxes to get a
> grip on the
> syntax. It is hard to exaggerate their influence on my
> grasp of Stata. And
> it had these brilliant manuals that let you take a look
> under the hood with
> their "Methods and Formulas" section, and give worked
> examples and
> literature references for further reading and to cite in a
> paper submission.
> In short, Stata excells at everything that put me off in
> R.
>
> All of which makes the licence fee for Stata suddenly look
> extremely small.
> Just think about the -additional- hours you spend on
> putting together the
> pieces that you need for a research project in R, and even
> after the first
> project you are in the black with Stata. That is at least
> my experience.
> Also, having played around with Stata 11 for the last
> couple of days, I am
> more convinced than ever that you do want Stata to be your
> major
> econometrics package on your computer! The pdf manuals, for
> instance, are
> simply brilliant :-) Everything searchable and clickable!
>
> And there has never been a more exciting time to join the
> Stata community,
> with the posts on Statalist significantly up from the
> -already high- traffic
> of the last years!
>
>
> HTH
> Martin
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]
> Im Auftrag von Ronggui Huang
> Gesendet: Sonntag, 26. Juli 2009 15:41
> An: [email protected]
> Betreff: Re: st: AW: Switching from SPSS to Stata
>
> I would be thankful if you can elaborate your ideas on R
> vs. Stata.
> R is superior than SPSS and is quite similar to Stata to
> some extent, I
> think.
>
> Ronggui
>
> 2009/7/19 Martin Weiss <[email protected]>:
> >
> > <>
> >
> >
> > I have had pretty much similar experiences, although I
> came from "R" and
> not
> > SPSS. Still, it is very good to see you here in this
> vibrant Stata
> > community.
> >
> > Just to kill off that last point you mentioned
> favoring SPSS. Here is code
> > that automatically converts a -log- to PDF on your
> windows machine. If you
> > have a MAC, you can use -translate- directly, and if
> you do not, you
> simply
> > install the free Miktex utilities and off you go:
> >
> > ***
> > //to log in an additional log and have it transferred
> to pdf
> >
> > //can set -linesize-
> > set linesize 120
> >
> > //close if open
> > capt log close newlog
> > di in red _rc
> >
> > log using mylog.smcl, name(newlog) replace
> >
> > sysuse auto, clear
> > reg price we head gear
> >
> > log close newlog
> >
> > //translate
> > translate mylog.smcl mylog.ps, replace
> > //need Miktex utilities running on computer for this
> step
> > !ps2pdf mylog.ps
> > capt erase mylog.ps
> > !start mylog.pdf
> > ***
> >
> >
> > HTH
> > Martin
> >
> >
> > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> > Von: [email protected]
> > [mailto:[email protected]]
> Im Auftrag von
> > [email protected]
> > Gesendet: Samstag, 18. Juli 2009 22:56
> > An: [email protected]
> > Betreff: st: Switching from SPSS to Stata
> >
> > Dear Statalisters,
> >
> > I'm working as a research analyst in public health
> since 1990. I've always
> > used Spss for my statistical analysis (the current
> version I have is the
> > outdated 12.1 release). I always work with the Spss
> syntax language,
> almost
> > never with the GUI (maybe one or two times a year).
> >
> > Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to take a
> look at an evaluation
> > copy of Stata 10. Although I'm not a statistician, it
> seems to me that
> > Stata is a far more superior statistical software that
> Spss. One of the
> > things I like about Stata, it's that Stata is a
> "complete package"
> > relatively to the Spss base software (well, it's true
> that it is now known
> > as PASW ...). In order to get with Spss what Stata
> offers, one has to buy
> > rather expensive add-on modules. One of the features I
> like the most about
> > Stata, is the possibility to analyse data from complex
> surveys (like the
> > Canadian Community Health Surveys - CCHS). It's not
> possible to do that
> > with the Spss base version. Stata also appears to me
> to have a much better
> > online help and documentation. And, to the say the
> least, the Stata
> support
> > staff is terrific.
> >
> > In my humble opinion, the only advantage I see in Spss
> over Stata is that
> > the Spss output is nicer than Stata's. It's easy to
> edit an Spss output
> > (insert a title for example) and distribute it as an
> PDF file to those who
> > haven't Spss installed on their computer.
> >
> > I'm particulary interested to hear about the
> experience of former strong
> > Spss users who decided to switch to Stata. Beside the
> fact Stata has much
> > more statistical procedures, is more powerful, and is
> much less expensive
> > to buy (as we don't have to purchase add-on modules to
> get "a complete
> set"
> > of statistical procedures), for what reasons did you
> decide to do so ? I
> > would be very grateful if you could give me a few
> reasons that could help
> > me to convince the administration department here to
> purchase Stata
> instead
> > of the next release of Spss (version 18.0)
> >
> > Thank you very much.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > P.S. Sincere apologies for the very bad English
> grammar and syntax.
> >
> > Yves Therriault, Ph. D.
> > Agent de recherche
> > Surveillance de l'état de santé de la population
> (Santé publique)
> > Direction de la planification, des ressources
> informationnelles et
> > financières
> > Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de la
> Côte-Nord
> > Téléphone (418) 589-9845 Poste 2312 ;
> Téléc. (418) 589-8574
> > Courriel : [email protected]
> >
> >
> > *
> > * 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/
> >
> >
> > *
> > * 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/
> >
>
>
>
> --
> HUANG Ronggui, Wincent
> PhD Candidate
> Dept of Public and Social Administration
> City University of Hong Kong
> Home page: http://asrr.r-forge.r-project.org/rghuang.html
>
> *
> * 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/
>
>
> *
> * 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/
>
*
* 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/
