[R] Reasons to Use R

[Mike Prager]

Certainly true.  In particular, SAS was designed from to store
data items on disk, and to read into core memory the minimum
needed for a particular calculation.

The kind of data SAS handles is (for the most part) limited to
rectangular arrays, similar to R data frames. In many procedures
they can be read from disk sequentially (row by row), which
undoubtedly simplifies memory handling.  It seems logical to
suppose that in developing SAS, algorithms were chosen to
support that style of memory management. Finally, the style of
writing programs in SAS consists of discrete steps of
computation, between which nothing but the program need be held
in core memory.


"Gabor Grothendieck" <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think SAS was developed at a time when computer memory was
> much smaller than it is now and the legacy of that is its better
> usage of computer resources.
> 
> On 4/10/07, Wensui Liu <liuwensui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Greg,
> > As far as I understand, SAS is more efficient handling large data
> > probably than S+/R. Do you have any idea why?

-- 
Mike Prager, NOAA, Beaufort, NC
* Opinions expressed are personal and not represented otherwise.
* Any use of tradenames does not constitute a NOAA endorsement.