Re: To SAS or not To SAS (or whatever else)!!

I've used SAS for about 10 years mainly for statistical analysis and
moderate-sized data management takss, and never used SPSS. It is very
easy for SAS to output reports in various formats, html, rtf. Also to
import and export different format datasets. I don't have experience
with super-large datasets; however, I know programmers who develop
complex data management systems completely in SAS. I never heard of
any industry-type applications being written with SPSS or whether SPSS
even has that capability. My completely biased opinion is go with SAS!
Bill H, MS, Wash U School Medicine


neilanessa@xxxxxxx wrote:
> To SAS or not To SAS (or whatever else)!!
>
> Hi all,
> This message is directed primarily to individuals in these groups who
> have
> long experience using both SPSS and SAS (or any other statistically
> oriented/data intensive analytic tools) with a heavy data volume and
> frequent
> reporting requirements. I am pretty open to any and all suggestions.
>
> In any normal context I wouldn't be caught dead with a SAS manual,
> and my obit will probably read, "We had to pull the SPSS manual from
> his cold dead hands, and needed to break some fingers to boot."
>
> BUT, I recently accepted a position where part of my responsibilities
> will involve the selection of off the shelf data base tools, analytical
> software,
> programming tools and use them to build rather large scale solutions.
>
>
> Questions I need to answer to management:
>
> Relative efficiency and ease of data access via a Database (ODBC
> connection).
> -We will be building a fairly large data base containing both
> contemporaneous and historical data. What I mean by fairly
> large most people would consider unfathomly HUGE.
> Multivariate Data feeds every ten minutes over a year. Often there
> will be
> multiple years from multiple sites.
>
> Ease of use and training/learning curve for new users (I am a seasoned
> SPSS professional with 20 years of experience with SPSS, I used SAS
> in Graduate school, but it seemed like having a root canal without a
> local).
>
> Cost of licensing.
>
> Flexibility of Output (Is SAS still text based output?, what do other
> statistical/reporting software solutions generate).
>
> Graphical capability (mostly sequence charts, histograms, bar charts) .
>
> Output Exports (Word, Excel)?
>
> Customizability, External Programability. AUTOMATION!!!
> (Preferably from VB.Net or C#.Net -yeah, I'm tossing VB6 into the
> history bin!-)
>
> Quality and ease of use/customizabilty of the User Interface.
>
> Data Export capability/flexibility
>
> The analytical/statistical reporting side is not terribly complex but
> the
> data volume will be immense and multiple person's will be using the
> data at any given moment. I hope this is clear wrt our requirements.
>
> BTW,
> I read the Comparisons document produced by Michael Mitchell at UCLA
> and have even posted my own comments on one of the SPSS lists
> (possibly this one *WHEN IS SPSS inc going to respond???*). His report
> might be useful to university students/professors, but fails to address
> the needs of people trying to make decisions/recommendations in the
> context I currently find myself, so please DO NOT SUGGEST I use that
> information as a guide (too much of it is simply incorrect -read my
> post
> for some examples!)
>
> Thanks, Neila
> Feel free to email me directly, but I believe it will be useful to have
> this
> discussion in the public forum

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: To SAS or not To SAS (or whatever else)!!
    ... It is very easy for SAS to output reports in various formats, html, rtf. ... I don't have experience with super-large datasets; however, I know programmers who develop complex data management systems completely in SAS. ... I never heard of any industry-type applications being written with SPSS or whether SPSS even has that capability. ...
    (sci.stat.consult)
  • To SAS or not To SAS (or whatever else)!!
    ... To SAS or not To SAS!! ... reporting requirements. ... and my obit will probably read, "We had to pull the SPSS manual from ... multiple years from multiple sites. ...
    (sci.stat.consult)
  • Re: multiple samples w/ replacement from large datasets
    ... Data Matter wrote: ... programs like SAS and SPSS keep all 1000 samples in memory while I read ... I don't know about SAS. ... As for SPSS, ...
    (sci.stat.consult)
  • Re: Computing the covariance between regression coefficients
    ... >that the differences are due to rounding error, or perhaps SPSS and SAS ... I don't have a citation handy. ...
    (sci.stat.math)