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.
