R help - Feb 2010 - BMDP and SAS (was R in clinical trials)

I used both BMDP and SAS in my earlier years, side by side.  At that
time the BMDP statistical methods were much more mature and
comprehensive: we treated them as the standard when the two packages
disagreed.  (It was a BMDP manual that clearly explained to me what the
hypothesis of "Yate's weighted mean test" is, something SAS
decided to
call "type III" and eternally obfuscate by defining it in terms of a
computational algorithm).  
  The BMDP programs had reasonable facilities for data manipulation ---
not as strong as SAS but reasonable.  However each analysis program was
a separate run, so you had to cut and paste your block of setup code
onto the front of each program's instructions.  "Cut and paste"
with a
keypunch machine is not quite as simple as with a mouse, if you needed a
listing, some frequencies, 2-3 regressions, ... it got rather tedious.

  Terry Therneau

Once I suggested to BMDP to introduce a module-statement that would 
direct the syntax to the specified module (1L, 2L, ...), so that all 
syntax could reside in one job, but they did not like that idea.

Heinz

At 14:55 19.02.2010, Terry Therneau wrote:
>   I used both BMDP and SAS in my earlier years, side by side.  At that
>time the BMDP statistical methods were much more mature and
>comprehensive: we treated them as the standard when the two packages
>disagreed.  (It was a BMDP manual that clearly explained to me what the
>hypothesis of "Yate's weighted mean test" is, something SAS
decided to
>call "type III" and eternally obfuscate by defining it in terms of
a
>computational algorithm).
>   The BMDP programs had reasonable facilities for data manipulation ---
>not as strong as SAS but reasonable.  However each analysis program was
>a separate run, so you had to cut and paste your block of setup code
>onto the front of each program's instructions.  "Cut and
paste" with a
>keypunch machine is not quite as simple as with a mouse, if you needed a
>listing, some frequencies, 2-3 regressions, ... it got rather tedious.
>
>   Terry Therneau
>
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