Re: st: Spss vs Stata

[SCHOUMAKER Bruno <bruno.schoumaker@uclouvain.be>]

I still have to use SPSS for my teaching - but I am working hard to 
convince a sufficient number of colleagues to switch to Stata. 
Incidentally, I started using Stata when doing my postdoc in Montreal :-)
SPSS is is also available in French, which is thought by some people in 
French speaking places (like here) to be an advantage over SPSS. 
However, the translation is sometimes so weird in the latest SPSS 
versions that I personnally consider it to be an disadvantage.
I agree SPSS can produces nice tables, but with some user-written 
packages and some investments in programming, I find Stata much more 
powerful even for tables.
Best,

Bon apprentissage de Stata...

Bruno

Le 2/08/2010 2:04, Yves Therriault a écrit :
> Dear Stata users,
>
> I've been using SPSS for 20 years. For the time being, I still use a
> six years old version of SPSS (12.01). For many reasons, I told my
> organisation that I would rather purchasing one licence of Stata
> instead of upgrading to the newest release of SPSS (18.0).
>
> A few months ago, I've asked former SPSS users to write about their
> experience with Stata. Generally, people who have decided to switch
> from SPSS to Stata aren't looking back.
>
> In order to learn the basics of Stata more easily when the software is
> installed on my computer, I bought 3 introductory books : A Gentle
> Introduction to Stata ; An Introduction to Stata for Health
> Researchers and, finally Data Analysis Using Stata.
>
> I'm interested to hear from those who made the switch to Stata and
> particularly about the lurning curve regarding the management of Stata
> output. Generally, Stata seems to be far more superior to SPSS in many
> ways. But, in my humble opinion, Stata is currently far behind SPSS
> concerning how it displays its output. I'm aware that a lot of
> routines have been written by Stata users to customize outputs though.
>
> Just in case Stata programmers were monitoring this list, I would be
> very pleased if the company decided to "improve" the output display in
> a future release. Perhaps, another possible feature would gave the
> user the choice between a "standard" Stata output and a Spss-like
> output.
>
> Of course, I don't intent to start a controversy here.  Maybe I'm just
> an "old SPSS user" who is a little bit afraid to have to learn a new
> syntax ! : - )
>
> Finally, I just want tell you all how much I appreciate this list.
> This is a very nice and vibrant community. I'm sure that I will learn
> a lot from Stata experts as soon as I start using the software.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Yves (Province de Québec)
>
> P.S. Sorry for the bad English. I write in English just once in a while.
>
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--
Bruno SCHOUMAKER

Centre de recherche en démographie et sociétés
Université catholique de Louvain
1-17 PLace Montesquieu
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
BELGIUM

Tel. +32 10 474136
Fax. +32 10 472952

bruno.schoumaker@uclouvain.be
www.uclouvain.be/demo

*
*   For searches and help try:
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*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/