From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2007-09-20T11:29:19+09:00
Subject: Re: statistical software and data transformation?

On Sep 19, 2007, at 9:21 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> Robert wrote:
>> How many ruby-ists have to do statistical analysis or data cleaning
>> prior to analysis?
>>
>> Is it not something that is done often by web developers?
>>
>> What is the well known software out there for statistical software or
>> data transformation software? That is open source, or at least  
>> free of
>> charge? I mean besides R, I think I understand what R's strengths and
>> limitations are.
>>
>> There is a number of applications at
>> http://directory.fsf.org/math/stats/
>>
>> but I do not know how mature they are (except for the one I submitted
>> (vilno)).
>>
>> Is there currently a successful project for incredibly user-friendly
>> open source statistical software, usually using a GUI, to compete  
>> with
>> SAS (JMP)  or SPSS? ( R is more for research statistics, with a tough
>> learning curve.).
>>
>> Appreciate your feedback,
>>
>> Robert
>
> I do a lot of data cleaning/pre-processing. Most of it is numerical  
> data
> rather than more "traditional" business data mining like
> name/address/zip code stuff. My main current modus operandi is
>
> 1. Do the data extraction in Perl. I'd use Ruby, but
>    a) I learned Perl years ago and just learned Ruby about a year ago
>    b) There are no other Ruby programmers around for backup.

We're all hurt Ed.  You know how we enjoy those, "Help me extract  
this data with a one-liner�" posts.  ;)

James Edward Gray II