SAS

Lately I have been struggling for what type of database to use for my analytics work. SQL Server is a really good database but I always get the feeling it wasbuilt for stuff other than what I want to do with it. I keep feeling like I am digging post holes with a spade and I keep thinking, “there should be a tool that does this better.” Yesterday I was listening to the IT Conversations Podcast and heard a presentation given by Michael Stonebraker from the Money:Tech conference.

[caption id="attachment_92” align="alignleft” width="165” caption="I love ya, SAS! “][/caption] Tibco acquired Insightful last year. Many folks have reported that S-Plus (the closed source implementation of the S language) was dang near financially killed by the success of R (the open source implementation of the S language). I may be slow on the update, but today I learned that a company named World Programming is making a product, WPS, which is an alternative implementation of the SAS base language.