Choose R or SAS

[featips]

I have used both R and SAS for a while in school. Now I plan to choose one from them and learn in depth. Anyone can give me suggestions about the choice, form the view point of quant job? For R and SAS, which is more used among quants?

I know R is very powerful, can do almost all things that SAS can do. Also, it is free. However, I heard R is slow. Learning R (to advanced level) is not easy since there is no good help or manual resources. Also, since R is free, it contains bugs. Also, I personally do not like the syntax style of R coding language.

For SAS, it is not free, so this kills a lot. However, looks like SAS is widely used in companies. There are very good help documents. It's programming syntax style is very good.......

So, I know both have their advantages and shortages, so it is difficult for me to make a choice. So, I want to know:

(1) For quants, which one do you use most?

(2) In financial institutions, do they only trust SAS? DO they trust open-source 'R'?

(3) For a MFE student, learning which one is better for job hunting, and future quant career?

Thanks a lot for your help.

-Derek

 

[Dmytro]

re 2), i heard a lot that companies guard notoriously their proprietary information. now imagine a situation when you have a problem/question with your R at work and need some help. you post on one of the open forums, and some dude responds - sure, i'll be happy to help, can you send me your code? as you can guess, many fin companies are not going to allow that...

on 3) provided your income is average, i would guess you would be better off practicing with R and then, when you get a job switch to SAS. they say R has improved significantly in the last couple of year, and gotten really close in functionality and usability to SAS, so the transition should be relatively smooth.

hope this helps, good luck,

 

[alain]

We use R

 

[featips]

I am in school now, and both R and SAS are available. So from what you said, maybe I shall start with SAS?

At the end of this year when I graduate from my MFE program, I will look for quant job. Which coding skills will be better, from the view point of recruiter?

 

[alain]

learn R

 

[featips]

I made google search,....someone said it is better that SAS appears in resume than R does. Do you guys agree with this? For a student, I need to select the one good for job hunting.

 

[Sanket Patel]

someone said it is better that SAS appears in resume than R does

Who was this someone?

sDo you guys agree with this?

This is the third time you're asking the same thing. Alain already recommended R. If you're really that torn between SAS and R, flip a coin and start learning one or the other.

 

[featips]

I know Alain answered, but he may represents his own company. I just want know more opinions. This shall be reasonable, right?

I shall mention that Alain is greatly appreciated for his answer.

 

[tobias elbert]

erm...last time I had to work with SAS I recall cursing it constantly. SAS is not a programming language! It has a horrible syntax that is not intuitive at all for someone who understands how to code (to be fair - I just had to use SAS for one day only). Personally, I can't see how SAS would benefit you as a quant unless you (want to) work in risk - that's where most of third party softwares and apps will be used based on my experience. The syntax you will learn in SAS will not help you at all learn other languages - in the contrary it probably will make the learning process even more difficult.

R is great for a beginner - it's an untyped language, but only to a certain extent (e.g. you still have to declare vectors or any sequences of related data as 'some forms of types'). The way it deals with loops and control flow statements is very similar to lower level languages.

Personally, if I see a job ad saying that good knowledge of SAS is required for the role usually means that the position is not worth bothering.

 

[alain]

Again, learn R. Subscribe to R-Sig-finance, check Rmetrics. You will find plenty of information to learn R.

A lot of prop houses aka hedge funds use R just because they don't have to spend a dime on it.

 

[featips]

Cool. Thanks a lot!. Now focus on R ......

 

[alfredo]

Iit tooks me one week to learn the most basics of R, cause i learned matlab before.
The advantage of R is that there is a huge community of staticien behind it. wich means that a lot of researcher when writing a paper they made their codes availibale for R. Then you have the last programmes for testing the last models. things SAS or other parogrammes can't offer.