The Main Differences between R vs Stata Programming: One Should Know

If you want to be a developer or you want to create your computer or mobile applications, you need to have a stronghold on different programming languages, coding, etc. Talking about programming, it is a digital collaboration between computers and human beings that allows humans to write instructions that are later executed by the computers in the form of codes. In other words, we can say programming is a set of instructions given to a computer for execution. On the other hand, coding is the process of transforming those ideas and instructions into a written format so it becomes easily understandable for the computer to execute. If you want to get help for R assignment help, there are many experts online who can help you instantly.

Programming offers a large number of data analysis software systems that play a very vital role when it comes to developing or creating any application using various types of codes and programming languages. So, in today’s topic, we are going to differentiate between two of the main programming languages R vs Stata. We will discuss the pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses of each of them along with several other details. So, let’s start with the introduction:

R: “R” is considered one the most reliable and influential languages of the programming world. It is an open-source statistical programming language that offers a high-level graphical interface that is compatible with any operating system. It was first created as a predecessor of the S language during the 1980s but R was officially announced in the year 1995 for the use of common people all around the world. “R” programming was developed by Ross Lhala and Robert Gentleman at the University of Auckland with the motive to allow statisticians of different academic branches to perform various statistical analyses. R programming is also used with R Studio, it is an integrated development environment (1DE) that is mostly used for client-service installation via a web browser

Comparison between R vs Stata can be better determined by studying the pros and cons of both subjects. 

Pros and Strengths of R

• Offers a variety of functions that helps in different programming languages. More than 2500 packages are available in R. 
• It’s quite easy to organize and process data in R because the availability of programming packages is very high.
• Helps in hypothesis testing to validate statistical models. 
• Offers a wide range of web applications that can be easily embedded on web pages.
• You can easily automate and integrate data with various software systems such as ODBC, Orale, LaTex, Git, Apache Hadoop, etc.
• Offers a variety of free resource materials such as tutorials, manuals, etc.

Uses a unique system of machine learning algorithms that helps to find the occurrence of future events

R programming supports all the platforms such as Windows, Linux, macOS, etc 

Cons and Weaknesses of R

• One of the biggest problems or you can say disadvantages of R is, it’s very difficult to learn as the programming language it operates on is prone to errors.
• R syntax presents a lot of barriers to entry.
• It is quite slow than Stata if we make a comparison between R vs Stata
• The stability of different packages is not high as compared to its core distribution
• Large and powerful hardware devices are required to work with large data sets.

Stata: Stata is also considered one of the most popular and widely used statistical data analysis software systems in the world. It is software that allows you to analyze and manage large data sets using various statistical methods to produce a graphical visualization of data. It is commercial software that helps to analyze data patterns and is mostly used in the field of economics, bio-medical, political science, etc. It was developed in the year 1985 by Stata Corp. with a motive to operate large sets of data using various statistical packages in a quite easy and powerful manner. Stata is a user-friendly software system that is used by many researchers and professionals all over the world.

Pros and Strengths of Stata

• Easy to learn as compared to R and almost every established statistical method can be found on Stata.
• Offers a user interface and command-line function along with easy-to-learn command syntax which is not possible in R programming.
• It can be easily automated 
• It is compatible with older versions which are considered as the main difference between R vs Stata.
• Mostly used for teaching and commercial purposes

Cons or Weaknesses of Stata

• Stata is not an open-source software system, so it is not possible to run your functions on it. 
• Creates barriers during version updates
• Its functions are limited only to numeric or categorical data
• It cannot analyze the functions on its own until a command is given. 

Conclusion:

All the points mentioned above differentiate R vs Stata effectively. Although both the programming languages have their own importance R has a variety of functions that allows users to deal with software and programming languages. You can only choose R over Stata if you have the knowledge of the coding environment, otherwise, you should go with Stata. It is quiet to use and if you are a beginner Stata is best recommended for you.

These were some of the major differences between R vs Stata and it might have cleared your doubts regarding both the programming languages and why there is a need of studying them separately.