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From: ronb@natmlab.OZ (Ron Baxter)
Newsgroups: net.math.stat
Subject: Re: Some topics I wouldn't mind discussing
Message-ID: <299@natmlab.OZ>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 09:11:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: natmlab.299
Posted: Thu Sep 26 09:11:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Sep-85 02:07:20 EDT
References: <277@nrcvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ronb@natmlab.UUCP (Ron Baxter)
Organization: CSIRO Div Maths and Stats & Div App Phys, Sydney, Australia
Lines: 74

In article <277@nrcvax.UUCP> jt@nrcvax.UUCP (Jerry Toporek) writes:
>
>Are you generally happy with the available statistical software in your
>computing environment?  Are UNIX people using S?  Is it really what you
>want, and, if so, for what types of applications?  What else is being used
>in the UNIX world?  
>
	On our system (4.2 BSD on a Vax 750) the main statistical
	packages available are:

	o  GLIM - an old favourite with good notation and
	   abilities for fitting models, but somewhat messy
	   output and a quirky syntax (e.g. sometimes you need to
	   have a $ at the end of a line to provoke action, and
	   sometimes you don't.)  Only needs a low once-off fee.

	o  MINITAB - users like it because it is easy to use.  It
	   has an annual fee (so is more expensive than GLIM) and
	   is distributed as a binary (so tough if you don't like
	   some of the decisions that have been made for you).

	o  GENSTAT - for getting ANOVAS for data from complex
	   designed experiments - it is better than the rest.  It
	   also has an annual fee (similar price to Minitab). It
	   is not seen as "easy to use", but it is quite powerful.
	   I have done a UNIX conversion of this package and it
	   is available from NAG.

	o  S - need I say more in this group.  It has the best
	   graphics facilities that we have for data analysts.
	   It is this that often gets users started on S, but
	   then they discover it can do more.  The fact that it
	   really is a practical proposition to add your own
	   algorithms in Fortran puts it way ahead of the others
	   which have limits that are more solidly defined.

	These are the main ones, we do have other more
	specialized packages, and libraries such as IMSL.


>Are your data management tools adequate?  Do they provide the kind of 
>operating environment you want?  Do data analysts still basically prepare
>commands and submit them to a background process, or do they prefer some kind
>of interactive operation?
>
	S and MINITAB are largely used interactively.  GENSTAT
	can be but usually isn't (people grew up using this in
	batch mode on CDC machines so ...).  GLIM is somewhere
	between being used interactively some of the time.

>Are people starting to use smaller machines for local computing and large
>machines for data storage?  Are there tools available to support distributed
>computing and data management?  Do you want them?
>
	I can see lots of scope for mmachines like the Microvax
	but we haven't moved far down this path yet.

>......................................  The switch came, in part, from a 
>belief that statistical software of the future will be built on top of tools
>providing access to resources within a network environment.  ............

	I agree that different facilities will be brought
	together by networks.  I also like the idea of this
	personal workstation being my window onto all this.
	However, at this stage I don't see a powerful enough
	workstation at a low enough price to start pushing the
	low-cost VDUs off everyones desks.

--
Ron Baxter,			ACSNET: ronb@natmlab
CSIRO Div Maths & Stats,	ARPA:   munnari!natmlab.oz!ronb@SEISMO.ARPA
National Measurement Lab.,	UUCP:   ...!seismo!munnari!natmlab.oz!ronb
PO Box 218, Lindfield, NSW,		
Australia, 2070.		PHONE:	+61 2 467 6059