[R] R routines vs. MATLAB/SPSS Routines

[Katharine Mullen]

I would stress the advantages of the free and open source nature of R over
the proprietary programs you mention. Because R is free (as in beer), your
student will have access to it even when they are free of the university
that I presume buys a MATLAB/SPSS license for them. And because R is open
source, when your student has an idea regarding how to make R work
faster/more efficiently/more accurately, they can modify the source code
at whatever level they like.  They can also examine at whatever level they
like what R is doing, so there are no black boxes involved.

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007, Matthew Dubins wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've become quite enamored of R lately, and have decided to try to teach
> some of its basics (reading in data, manipulation and classical stats
> analyses) to my fellow grad students at the University of Toronto.  I
> sent out a mass email and have already received some positive
> responses.  One student, however, wanted to know what differentiates the
> routines that R uses, from those that MATLAB and SPSS use.  In other
> words, in what respects do R routines work faster/more efficiently/more
> accurately than those of MATLAB/SPSS.
>
> I thank you in advance for any answer you can give me (or rather, the
> inquiring student).
>
> Cheers,
> Matthew Dubins
>
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