Re: Should I use PSPP or R?

[Thomas Levine]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I haven't ever used any real stats package unless you want to count the
one on the TI-89 Titanium, and seems it won't really matter which one I
use as whatever I do should be pretty simple, so I'll use another
criterium that I sometimes use to determine which program to use: Is it
easier to convert files from PSPP to R or from R to PSPP?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org

iD8DBQFGP/ZWaROzpVxvjPURAklOAKCUrm45Ykre981bTPE40m1wB4onCACeLYgR
wI6tM3/fAMozcx/6g+urqEc=
=QFHe
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 5/7/07, Alan Mead <address@hidden> wrote:

Thomas Levine wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It seems like the only real free statistics packages are PSPP and R,
> but I'm having trouble understanding why people want to create a whole
> new system even though R already exists.  Aside from SPSS
> compatibility, what advantages does PSPP have over R?
>
> Thomas Levine
>


Thomas,

If you're happy with R, by all means.  There are many people who use S/R
and love it... But there are legions of people who will never use R but
think SPSS is better than sliced bread.

IMHO it's pretty handy to have the spreadsheet-like interface to the
dataset when you are creating new variables, transforming variables,
etc.  (Maybe R does this?  I'm only familiar with the CL version.  The
SAS version of this, where you can look, but not touch, is not as useful.)

For example, I recently had a dataset where I had 1-5 raters per person
and I wanted to calculate an ICC to assess agreement.  To do this, I had
to take the dataset with one record per 1 rating and flatten it into a
dataset with one record per ratee with three ratings/columns (I
discarded the fourth and fifth ratings).  SPSS provides functionality to
do this pretty neatly (and yet I screwed it up twice before getting it
right).  Being able to write SPSS code to do the transformations but
also being able to visually inspect the data is a big plus for me.

(That said, R can do a lot of neat tricks as well.. especially
graphics... don't get me wrong.)

Ultimately, why would you only want one tool in your toolbox?

-Alan

--
Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions,
including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.
--Doug Larson

Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.             | Institute of Psychology
Assistant Professor             | Illinois Institute of Technology
Scientific Adviser,             | 3101 South Dearborn, 2nd floor
Center for Research and Service | Chicago IL 60616

Skype: alandmead
+312.567.5933 (Campus)
+815.588.3846 (Home)
+312.567.3493 (Fax)