Hi All,

Thanks to all for the insightful and interesting comments about R,
Stata, SPSS as well as about my off topic question!

I had to post one more time, just to articulate one important
criticism of encouraging wide adoption of lower-level, high-level
languages (like C and Fortran): quality control. As Neal Beck put it:

" "do you really want to now trust our colleagues to not only do good
work but also to program correctly?" - how many gauss/r complicated
maxlik/simulation resuls do you really believe?"

Although as Jas and Phil note, the durability and power of these
languages are not in doubt, Neal's point deserves mention. Heck, I
know I have plenty of worry in my heart about and endlessly test my
own programs.

Best

Jake


Jake Bowers
currently:
Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar, '05-'07
Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Harvard University

on leave:
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies, ISR
University of Michigan

http://www.umich.edu/~jwbowers

**********************************************************
             Political Methodology E-Mail List
        Editor: Karen Long Jusko <[log in to unmask]>
**********************************************************
        Send messages to [log in to unmask]
  To join the list, cancel your subscription, or modify
           your subscription settings visit:

          http://polmeth.wustl.edu/polmeth.php

**********************************************************