[ShadowAce]

[DoodleBob]

Thank you for a timely article. In the world of data science and statistics and econometrics, a similar debate is brewing. Basically, the old-school standard of SAS is being challenged by the "open-source" preference of R or Python from the younger generation. SAS isn't cheap, but it is powerful and lots of people know it. R and Python are "open source" and the "kids" all use them and know them and, to be fair, they are also pretty powerful.

Where I see this debate turning is with the company admins who overseee which programs will be the corporate standard. In short, can we "trust" and manage bugs with an "open source" behind our firewal, or do we keep paying SAS a lot for a darn good and generally headache-free product that most people know.

I also believe this is a situation where us old dogs must grow and learn: R and Python should be on everyone's training/education plan if you're a SAS dog.