Douglas Bates writes: > One > can do data analysis by using the computer as a blunt instrument with > which to bludgeon the problem to death but one can't do elegant data > analysis like that.
One nice thing about a "blunt instrument" like Stata is the ability to hold an entire dataset in memory and interactively play with the model and generate new variables all in one session. I figure out what I want interactively and then separate the data management and analysis in .do-files, then run them in batch mode. However, when I first read of the approach of using Perl, sed or awk to manage data and then only doing the analysis in R, I immediately thought "Wow, that is a really great idea, I never thought of it like that before." It would really get me to think about the modelling and the data management clearly. A little voice said "Dude, you're not using a PDP-11...(oh wait, that might be kinda cool)" but the logic of it immediately made sense. I consider it a big part of my re-Unix-ization. Joel -- Joel J. Adamson Biostatistician Pediatric Psychopharmacology Research Unit Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA 02114 (617) 643-1432 (303) 880-3109 The information transmitted in this electronic communication...{{dropped}} ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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.