Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
I'm a bit new with python, but have found it extremely easy to learn and use. I have been using it to pre-process some text files that we often deal with and need to be formatted in a certain way before they can be used for statistical analysis in another software program. I suppose there is one thing I've learned that can make python a bit more useful than R. It is possible to use Freeze to make your python programs stand alone executables. So, if you have any need to have a non-programmer replicate something easily, you can write a python program and even make a GUI with Tkinter that will work on any platform (as I understand it). Just the other day, a colleague and I wrote programs to process a text file. His was SAS and mine was python and both gave the same end result. My python code was about 4 lines long whereas his SAS code was ridiculously long and hard to understand. We settled a bet than python is better for this kind of stuff. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wensui Liu Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 6:28 PM To: r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language Dear Experts, Thank you so much for your opinions. I probably will go with python. Following your suggestion, I started reading some tutorials but have a quick question. In the sense of statistical computing, is there anything that can be easily done with python but not with SAS/R? Could you please give such an example? Wish you all have a happy new year! wensui On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. thank you so much! Have a happy holiday. wensui -- WenSui Liu A lousy statistician who happens to know a little programming (http://spaces.msn.com/statcompute/blog) __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
Dear Experts, Thank you so much for your opinions. I probably will go with python. Following your suggestion, I started reading some tutorials but have a quick question. In the sense of statistical computing, is there anything that can be easily done with python but not with SAS/R? Could you please give such an example? Wish you all have a happy new year! wensui On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. thank you so much! Have a happy holiday. wensui -- WenSui Liu A lousy statistician who happens to know a little programming (http://spaces.msn.com/statcompute/blog) __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
On 12/30/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Experts, Thank you so much for your opinions. I probably will go with python. Following your suggestion, I started reading some tutorials but have a quick question. In the sense of statistical computing, is there anything that can be easily done with python but not with SAS/R? Could you please give such an example? I gather that just about anything can be done in R and have seen some pretty amazing examples, but I come from the right tool for the job school as contrasted to the when you have a hammer everything begins to look like a nail school. As a consequence I tend to use R for statistics, SQL for database management, gnuplot for graphics and Python for general programming and glue... A lot of that has to do with the order in which I learned the tools, for example I am much faster/more productive with gnuplot than with R graphics, but that gap is narrowing as I climb R's grade. jab--not an expert, just a traveller -- John Bollinger, CFA, CMT www.BollingerBands.com If you advance far enough, you arrive at the beginning. __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
Its easier to write command line filters using perl/python/gawk than R. Its possible in R but awkward as there is no good way (platform independent,easy to use) of referring to stdin data. Something as simple as gawk 1 which just copies its input to its output is pretty awkward in R. What R really needs is the ability to write: R -f myprog.R myinput.dat myoutput.data and have myprog.R refer to myinput.dat via /dev/stdin . On 12/30/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Experts, Thank you so much for your opinions. I probably will go with python. Following your suggestion, I started reading some tutorials but have a quick question. In the sense of statistical computing, is there anything that can be easily done with python but not with SAS/R? Could you please give such an example? Wish you all have a happy new year! wensui On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. thank you so much! Have a happy holiday. wensui -- WenSui Liu A lousy statistician who happens to know a little programming (http://spaces.msn.com/statcompute/blog) __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. I would second the recommendation by John Bollinger to look into Python. I haven't used Ruby, so I can't compare the two languages, but compared to Perl, Python has is considerably easier to understand and maintain. The language is widely used and is available on several platforms. The Python Web site includes tutorials, and the download includes an IDE with an interface to extensive help files. http://www.python.org/ -- Mike Prager, NOAA, Beaufort, NC * Opinions expressed are personal and not represented otherwise. * Any use of tradenames does not constitute a NOAA endorsement. __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. We have found Python to be the perfect choice for our work. Python is a high-level, cross-platform language that is easy to learn/write with an extensive set of libraries. It supports object and procedural programming styles equally well, so one may match the style to the task. If is also an excellent 'glue' language, easily tying together diverse programs in various environments. There is great connectivity with R though rpy and RSpython. Here are links to some of the connectors we use: R http://rpy.sourceforge.net/ http://www.omegahat.org/RSPython/ Database http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python http://www.initd.org/tracker/pysqlite Graphics http://gnuplot-py.sourceforge.net/ Windows--COM, DDE... http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/ The Python tutorial is the place to start: http://docs.python.org/tut/ jab -- John Bollinger, CFA, CMT www.BollingerBands.com If you advance far enough, you arrive at the beginning. __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. It seems R would be the language of choice if you require related to statistical work. I would be surprised if any general scripting language would restrict themselves to statistics. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. I find Ruby to be the closest language to the way I think about programming. It's fully object oriented, dynamically typed, open-source, free, and runs on just about any platform. Sophisticated IDE's are available and it can also run easily from the command line (like Perl). Ruby is fun to use. There are a lot of online Ruby resources and also printed material. Here are just a few. Language overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_%28programming_language%29 Main Website: http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ Learning Ruby: http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/ http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.3/index.html http://poignantguide.net/ruby/ Give it a try online: http://tryruby.hobix.com/ Book: http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ [NB: This free online book is for Ruby 1.6. Another printed and PDF book is available for Ruby 1.8] http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/ruby/index.html Newsgroup: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby thank you so much! Your welcome! Have a happy holiday. Thank you, I am. 8-) I hope everyone is having a nice holiday. Richard Graham __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
[R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. thank you so much! Have a happy holiday. wensui __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
I used gawk and perl prior to using R but as I got more proficient in R I found I could do just about everything in R itself and have largely forgotten perl at this point and rarely use gawk either. I must say I never liked perl and if python were more mature back then I probably would have used that. I do use Windows batch commands and javascript, e.g. http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/ for situations where I want self contained, no dependency, installation and configuration scripts; however, I don't really like Windows batch commands and if it were not for the requirement of no dependencies I would not use it. This does have the disadvantage of not being portable to other OSes but the no dependency requirement is overriding in these situations. Maybe if you could discuss what you intend to do more can be said. On 12/23/06, Wensui Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. thank you so much! Have a happy holiday. wensui __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] OT: any recommendation for scripting language
Wensui Liu wrote: Right now, I am using SAS and S+/R. As a new year resolution, I am planning to learn a scripting language. from statisticians' point of view, which scripting language is worth to learn, perl, python, or any other recommendation? (Most likely, I will be learning it in windows.) Since I am not in research, I will prefer one widely used in industry and related to statistical work. if you recommend one, I will really appreciate it if you could point out a good source for learning as well. Hi Wensui, I use Tcl-Tk quite a bit. I found it very easy to learn, and as you can see from the tcl-tk package in R, very flexible. It is particularly good at spanning the range from a slick-looking GUI to low level file and computation operations. I'm currently using it to pick individual records out of a database, calculate age and sex specific deviations from population norms and then present a graphical display to the user. There is not only excellent documentation available for Tcl-Tk, but several newsgroups and wikis. http://www.tcl.tk Jim __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
