I too have a shrink-wrapped copy of SPlus 7 that I have not installed
yet because I prefer to use R. Just haven't decided if I should stop
renewing it or not. This discussion is making me think more about it.
I can install R on my work PC and my server at work that I connect to
using remote desktop. Then between Rgui and Rterm I can have four R
programs running at the same time on the two computers. Good luck S
Plus.
I don't want to hijack this thread, but I saw some people mention that
they used S Plus to power web pages. I am looking into doing that
with R to provide my R programs to other employees who do not know R.
I have been playing with Rpad and while it has some bugs, I really
like it and am very impressed. Can anyone else comment on this use of
Rpad or suggest anything else I should be looking at?
Thanks,
Roger
On 7/13/05, Liaw, Andy <andy_liaw@merck.com> wrote:
> I'll chip in my $0.02:
>
> 1. I find Insightful's marketing blurb for the big data library
> in the Enterprise Developer version a bit puzzling: I just
> check the price of a dual Opteron 275 server with 8GB of RAM
> at one vendor, and it is under $6500 (with 16GB that jumps
> to over $12000). Anyone care to disclose the price tag of
> the enterprise developer edition?
>
> 2. There are companies that will want the commercial support
> for the software. One quote I heard at LinuxWorld last year
> in NYC: "Companies want one throat to choke on." Insightful
> is that throat for S-PLUS. There's none for R. If some
> company is willing to do for R what Novell/RH/etc. does for
> Linux, the situation might be different.
>
> 3. Somewhat related to #2 above, the "21 CFR part 11 compliant"
> banner that S-PLUS now carries counts a lot in certain
> industry.
>
> 4. BDR said in one of his talks a few years ago that R probably
> has more bugs than S-PLUS. However, bugs in R get fixed a
> lot quicker than in S-PLUS. Also, R is developed at a much
> faster pace than S-PLUS. That it may have more bugs is
> understandable.
>
> 5. If a question posted to R-help/R-devel gets no response,
> there must be a good reason. I do not view friendly
> non-answer as any more helpful.
>
> 6. For the people that Rolf mentioned: if they had learned the
> "source is master" paradigm, they would not have that problem.
>
> 7. Forbidding usage of single-user license software as backend of
> web/remote application is not new: Matlab has had that
> restriction for years. I think this is reasonable, as it's
> no longer being used by only one person.
>
> 8. John's betamax analogy might be a bit off: I believe it was
> widely recognized that betamax was superior to VHS. I'm quite
> sure there's no such concensus on R vs. S-PLUS. I won't get
> into the Mac (or soon to be Mactel) vs. Wintel debate...
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
>
> > From: Thomas Jagger
> >
> > I use a university wide license for version 6.2 and 7.0, but
> > even in the
> > academic environment license management is difficult. While I
> > could use the
> > features of large data objects, I don't want to deal with
> > having software
> > that no longer works after a certain date. Certainly for our batch
> > applications that run unattended this would be difficult. My
> > solution is to
> > stay with V6.1 as needed and switch to R for features
> > available in R but not
> > in S (V6.1). Especially when it comes to spending government
> > money, one has
> > to be careful.
> >
> > For some applications, R works much faster. As core storage
> > gets cheaper and
> > 64 bit becomes a reality, I do not think that my need for
> > Splus large data
> > objects will be necessary, by then R will have a package (if
> > it does not
> > already). If it does let me know, I would like to try it out
> > on some large
> > climate data sets.
> >
> > The other downside to Splus V7.0 Enterprise edition is that
> > it seems to take
> > longer to load. I have not benchmarked performance of V7.0 as
> > compared to
> > V6.1.
> >
> >
> >
> > Tom
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: s-news-owner@lists.biostat.wustl.edu
> > [mailto:s-news-owner@lists.biostat.wustl.edu] On Behalf Of
> > Fowler, Mark
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 11:42 AM
> > To: kwright@eskimo.com; s-news@lists.biostat.wustl.edu
> > Subject: Re: [S] Concerns about SPLUS version 7
> >
> > Kevin, your perspective on S vs. R comes closest to my own. And with
> > respect
> > to renewing the S license, the driving force is maintaining web-based
> > applications that would otherwise have to be converted to R.
> > Having already
> > converted some simpler ones, I have a reasonable appreciation
> > for what is
> > involved. The task is sufficiently onerous that I dread
> > having to convert
> > the more involved applications. But pressure to switch to R comes from
> > above, due to both pricing/licensing concerns, and
> > disappointment with the
> > rate of development of StatServer. I'm one of only a few left that are
> > allowed to renew S licenses. New staff are required to choose
> > a cheaper
> > route, with R encouraged. And the licenses of recent users of S were
> > discontinued this year, so I suspect active licenses may be
> > restricted to
> > historical application developers. I expect that a viable
> > alternative to
> > StatServer will be the end of S at our site. I can't help
> > feeling a bit
> > sorry about that, S made such a positive difference for so
> > many years (I
> > came to it from GLIM, can you imagine my relief?).
> >
> >
> > > Mark Fowler
> > Population Ecology Division
> > > Bedford Inst of Oceanography
> > > Dept Fisheries & Oceans
> > > Dartmouth NS Canada
> > B2Y 4A2
> > Tel. (902) 426-3529
> > Fax (902) 426-9710
> > > fowlerm@mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
> > >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: kwright@eskimo.com [mailto:kwright@eskimo.com]
> > Sent: July 12, 2005 1:39 PM
> > To: Rolf Turner
> > Cc: tzamouranisy@louisdreyfus.com; s-news@lists.biostat.wustl.edu
> > Subject: Re: [S] Concerns about SPLUS version 7
> >
> >
> > Well, Rolf, I think you need to try harder to fathom. :-)
> > This debate is
> > not new, but here are some of my current reasons to use S-Plus, both
> > idealogical and practical. (I do also use R).
> >
> > 1. Competition can be good.
> > 2. S-plus has tools for connectivity to other software. For example,
> > opening Excel in S-Plus and calling S-Plus functions from
> > Excel. Neither
> > feature is as easy in R.
> > 3. S-Plus is part of StatServer, which is a nice system for
> > enterprise-wide
> > statistical analyses and reports. Doing the same in R
> > requires expertise in
> > some hodgepodge collection of things like SOAP, PERL, etc.
> > 4. Some organizations will only use software that can be purchased.
> > 5. When I send email to R-devel, I cross my fingers that (a)
> > Someone will
> > please answer and (b) I won't have my question (or myself) critiqued.
> > Insightful support is friendlier and always answers
> > (admittedly, not always
> > with a solution).
> > 6. I have filed fewer bug reports about S-Plus than I have about R.
> > 7. S-Plus has some libraries that are not available in R.
> > For example, the
> > robust library is nice and I think it is better than the
> > robust statistical
> > methods in R.
> > 8. Insightful is a channel for turning a few million dollars
> > of research
> > grants into software that benefits us all.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Kevin Wright. S-Plus user 1994-2005. R User 2001-2005.
> >
> >
> > > I cannot for the life of me fathom why ***anyone*** would use SPLUS
> > > anymore. No one that I know does so. All use R. The only problem
> > > that ever arises is of the nature of ``Whoops! I have this
> > data set
> > > stored as an SPLUS object, and I can't get at it. And none of my
> > > mates can help me out because none of them has access to SPLUS
> > > either.''
> > >
> > > This problem is decaying exponentially however.
> > >
> > > cheers,
> > >
> > > Rolf Turner
> > > rolf@math.unb.ca
> >
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>
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