Hacker News Reader

How does R compare to SAS? I work in Engineering and we use SAS pretty heavily for a lot of stuff (simple modelling, time series forecasting, multiple regressions that type of thing). One thing I really like is how well integrated SQL is does R have something similar to PROC SQL? That is really the killer feature of SAS for me.

View on HN

I use SAS professionally at my job, and R in all my academic/hobby work. R has a couple packages that give similar functionality as PROC SQL (about 95% of my SAS workflow, since it's far nicer than data steps for a lot of things). There's an ODBC package (RODBC), as well as SQLDF, which allows you to use SQL queries to manipulate data frames in R.

While there is (almost?) always a way to do a SQL query using idiomatic R, I have to admit that sometimes my brain thinks up a solution in SQL faster (a product of upbringing).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com