Re: A stats library (announcement)



Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Reef Fish wrote:
> > Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx wrote:
> > > Mr. BK of Baltimore, MD wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Allow me to rant some more about stats packages and why learning a
> > > > dozen of them drove me to waste time writing a general-purpose stats
> > > > library.
> >
> >
> > > Your points (or rant :-) ) are well taken, but I think Babel has
> > > broken upon us and there will be no going back,
> >
> > True to a large extent for many reasons you've advanced (all they
> > have at work; wheel-re-inventers; limited exposures to what had
> > already been built, etc.) but your stereotypical characterization
> > is both myopic and unnecessary.
> >
> >
> > > they know, people who can manage through contortions to do what they
> > > need with the software they know (you know the type: "I can write
> > > this text editor in FORTRAN :-) )
> >
> > FORTRAN was a wunderkind after I had to learn machine language,
> > Symbolic language, Assembler, and other primitive tools, but
> > FORTAN has been OBSOLETE to any one in the know about languages
> > for almost half a CENTURY!
>
> Of course, FORTRAN aficionados would say your knowledge of the
> language is dated and that FORTRAN has been modernized, expanded,
> and improved.

Like the New, New, Improved Soap commercials of the same stuff
with some cosmetic changes in the box, like addding labels of
"New, New, Improved"? :-)

> >
> > > Even a good design (your library or Speakeasy
> > > or whatever else someone wants to proclaim as wonderful) would have
> > > to be very inclusive (small work function for many people)
> >
> > Your generalities do not apply to SPEAKEASY.
>
> The generalization that it has a work function to overcome and
> because of that many people would not move to it does apply.
> And because of human nature, the work function doesn't have
> to be large.

That much is certainly true. But what you call the "work function"
to move, and move only once in a life time, is negligible for those
good enough to invent wheels, even an old one; and not any more
than it takes to learn ANY language, good or bad. THAT's the
proper base for comparison.

The reason that SPEAKEASY never caught on like much, much inferior
languages and packages like SPSS and SAS is a combination of the
(lack of) sophistication of the average USER, and the lack of
advertising of the PRODUCT. That's why some products pay half a
million dollars for half a minute of TV commercial just to SELL
a $20 item, in the hopes of selling lots of them. SPEAKEASY never
had that kind of advertisement budget.

Stan Cohen tried showing SPEAKEASY in an ASA (now JMS) Annual
Meeting years ago, and gave up for all the obvious reasons
known in Marketing.


> In fact, all it has to be is perceived of as
> significant (which may be more the fault of the environment
> that the software itself), and clearly it is difficult to
> overcome such externalities. That is not necessarily a
> reflection on the language, but for whatever reason Speakeasy
> has not conquered the computing world. The problem may have
> be the promoters possibly thought it was so good that it
> promoted itself.

That is sometimes true, for certain products. But not the
Speakeasy reason. Stan Cohen was much more a scientist and
innovative system developer than a salesman. :-) It is simply
a case of lack of advertising budget and lack of EXPOSURE ro
a knowledgeable audience.


I don't know. The landscape is littered
> with software that was good in its time and was supplanted
> by, IMO, inferior software. Often it was, broadly speaking,
> marketing as much as anything that made the difference,

Didn't you know that Marketing is EVERYTHING?

When Zsa Zsa sold her $1 cosmetics product for $50, with ad hooplas,
it was making money because people thought it was something so
good that the wearer can slap policemen at will. :-) But when
K-Mart started selling the same product for $5 and still made big
profits, Zsa Zsa sued K-Mart because she was losing her $50 a
shot gravy train.

as
> far as I have seen. All that goes to show that factors in
> addition to how wonderful the language is also play a part
> in success or failure, and Speakeasy is not immune.

Of course not. It's all Fact of Life in the Real World.
>
> > It invented many
> > NEW wheels in the 1960s, and most of them are STILL NEW today, to
> > all the other software mentioned by you or BK. It invented ONLY
> > new and useful wheels, not re-inventing old wheels if others
> > have already invented them and done them quite well.
> >
> > It makes USE of the some of the best features of the best libraries
> > around already -- LINPACK, ICEPACK, NAG, and other well-known and
> > well establish routines invented by others.
> >
> > I am more multi-lingual in somputing software than most computer
> > jocks and hacks, though I don't consider myself one. I was VERY
> > familiar with at least a dozen or two of the major statistical
> > packages; very familiar with a dozen different LANGUAGES. It's
> > only through such knowledge that I was perfectly satisfied NOT
> > to seek or invent any new wheel since about 30 years ago, because
> > there HASN'T been anything that came close to SPEAKEASY as a
> > language, let alone better, except for certain very specialized
> > tasks.
> >
> > In that respect, I offer myself as a counterexample to everything
> > you've said in your post. :-)
> >
> >
> > > By now I've probably have ticked off pretty much
> > > everyone who holds an opinion about software, either explicitly or
> > > implicitly by not mentioning their favorite, so I'll wish you good
> > > luck with your efforts.
> >
> > You mentioned my favorite, but you also showed that you are almost
> > ignorant of both the OUTnard and INards of that software. :-)
>
> It brings back memories. I used it at Argonne in 1974 to obtain
> some results that went in the first paper I ever coauthored.

You recollected well. It was developed at Argonne by Stan Cohen
when he was there.

I
> liked it a lot, but of course it was light years ahead of
> anything I'd used up to that time. It was also a resource hog
> (in terms of the total system I needed to use it for my project,
> which may not have been completely the language's fault)

Part of what you referred to as the "resource hog" may be the
extensive INTERNAL documentation (a Good Thing <a built-in
online Manual that you can get HELP and DOCUMENT in everything>
-- which was where I got some of the info from my OLD PC version
in listing some categories and functions. :-) That version
was almost as old as the IBM PC/AT or Microshaft themselves.
So, the "resource hog" wouldn't apply. Stan did have to trim
some of the features to have smaller MAX dimensions.

It's certainly true that it't not for the steamroller lovers
to roll 10,000 variables and 20,000 observations each to reap
the rich garbage they produce. :)

> and I
> got taken to task by the assistant division director for spending
> as much money as I did using it. I told him my boss had approved.

The purchase price of a mainframe package wasn't cheap, nor was it
prohibitive, IIRC. But Stan just wasn't much of a Marketing
person like Jim Goodnight.

To use your term "light years ahead of" anything you had used in
1974, what was there in 1974 is STILL lightyears ahead of many of the
best-selling languages and packages in 2005. :-)

-- Bob.
>
> >
> > It has many NEW WHEELS (that were left over from 30 years ago) that
> > haven't been discovered by all the present and past generations of
> > programmers and software hackers yet, while it has also taken
> > advantage (rather than re-invent) may old and working wheels, in
> > linear algebra, optimization techiniques, numerical analysis
> > methods, etc.
> >
> > That's why I hadn't have to RELY on any statistical package or
> > other software languages that I knew, and knew VERY well, for
> > DECADES.
> >
> > So, there!
> >
> > Disclaimer: I hold no stock or sell the SPEAKEASY software, nor
> > will I benefit directly or indirectly from anyone else purchasing
> > or using that package. Just giving you my EXPERT opinion about
> > computer languages and packages that are good for statistical
> > computing.
> >
> > If you still don't look carefully or try it, it'll be your loss,
> > but you got what you paid for in this newsgroup. :-)
> >
> > -- Bob.
>
> Cheers,
> Russell

.

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