{
  "id": "1996-april-sas-vs-spss",
  "slug": "1996-april-sas-vs-spss",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-april-sas-vs-spss.html",
  "year": 1996,
  "month": "April",
  "monthNum": 4,
  "headline": "SAS vs. SPSS",
  "kicker": "Playing with the big guns",
  "author_name": "Steve Doig",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "The Miami Herald",
  "summary": "The article recommends that computer-assisted reporting specialists learn statistical analysis software like SAS or SPSS despite their high cost and steep learning curve, due to their powerful capabilities for sophisticated data analysis beyond what Excel and basic programs can offer.",
  "keywords": [
    "statistics",
    "software",
    "analysis"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Data & Databases",
    "Technology",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "SAS",
    "SPSS",
    "Excel",
    "FoxPro",
    "SQL"
  ],
  "full_text": "If you can touch-type your way around a spreadsheet, and you speak fluent SQL to your database program, it's time to add a new power tool to your CARpentry workbench: One of the major statistical analysis software packages, either SAS or SPSS.\n\nHere's where I'd like to tell you that, despite what you've heard, SAS and/or SPSS are cheap and easy to master. I'd like to, but I'd be telling a lie.\n\nActually, they're damned expensive, and they can do things you'll have trouble pronouncing (say \"partial canonical correlation analysis\" three times), much less readily understand how to use.\n\nSoftware with strength\n\nSo why would I recommend that CAR specialists who already are happy with programs like Excel and FoxPro begin learning such powerful software? For that very reason the power. As you might expect, both SAS and SPSS are loaded with a huge array of functions for doing sophisticated statistical analyses. With them, you can do just about anything from simple crosstabs and frequency tables up through multiple linear regression and on to such exotica as cluster, fac... you'll be glad you have either one.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "1999-september-sas-vs-spss",
      "score": 0.549
    },
    {
      "slug": "2003-february-using-sas-code-in-other-programs",
      "score": 0.387
    },
    {
      "slug": "1996-april-suggested-books-on-statistics",
      "score": 0.347
    },
    {
      "slug": "2003-novemberdecember-free-tool-reads-converts-sas-data",
      "score": 0.29
    },
    {
      "slug": "1999-october-numerical-accuracy",
      "score": 0.2
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-april-sas-vs-spss.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-april-sas-vs-spss.json"
}