On 26 Mar 2004 08:23:25 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Alan Acock) wrote: [ ... ] > > Stata lacks a truly introductory manual like SAS or SPSS, but for anybody > with experience with another package, Stata is easy to learn. The > documentation and help system on Stata are the clearest I've seen. [ snip, rest ]
I've got this manual, Version 5.0 edition from 1985: SAS User's Guide: Basics. It is over 1200 pages long. And they are serious. We Americans sometimes call that contrast 'ironical'; I don't know what the British call it. Everyone I've known who has made the comparison has agreed that you spend twice as long getting a SAS job to run, and getting it to run right, compared to SPSS. With SAS, the first challenge is (often) finding the right couple of manuals, where you need to read about your problem. (And, I am convinced that SAS gives more options than SPSS; but I am pretty much convinced that there must be a much higher rate of bad errors that get published, for SAS users. - Years ago, the manuals were awful to navigate, and the computer listings were bad to read, too, compared to other packages. I never heard about a miraculous improvement, but it would be nice if it had happened, but 'hard-to-read' seemed to fit Procedure Mixed when I read about that, in more recent years. ) -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html - I need a new job, after March 31. Openings? - . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
