R, Python or SAS: Which one should you learn first?

R

Python, R and SAS are the three most popular languages in data science. If you are new to the world of data science and aren’t experienced in either of these languages, it makes sense to be unsure of whether to learn R, SAS or Python.

Don’t fret, by the time you’re done reading this article, you will know without a doubt which language is the right one for you.

R - R is the lingua franca of statistics. It is a free and open source programming language used to perform advanced data analysis tasks.

Python –Python is a multi-purpose, free and open source programming language which has become very popular in data science due to its active community and data mining libraries.

SAS – SAS has been the undisputed market leader in the enterprise analytics space. It offers a huge array of statistical functions, has a good GUI for people to learn quickly and provides brilliant technical support.

If you are looking to start a career in data science or to gain the skills to be able to transition to this field in the future. Then you are probably doing some research on which of these three programming languages you should learn first to maximize your chances of landing your dream job. Should you focus on mastering R? Or would be it better to make SAS a priority? Or should you learn Python?

Take a look at these 5 factors as a starting point to help you decide:

Industries where the tool is used

Burtch Works,HR firm, asked over 1000 quantitative professionals which language they preferred, SAS, R or Python. Here are the survey results:

SAS is largely preferred by big corporations because they are offered highly reputed customer service, which is also why SAS has an advantage in the financial services sector and marketing companies, where cost is not the primary concern for selecting a tool.

R and Python, on the other hand, are used by Startups and mid-sized firms. Tech and Telecom companies require huge volumes of unstructured data to be analyzed, and hence data scientists use machine learning techniques for which R and Python are more suitable.

SAS is an expensive commercial software and is mostly used by large corporations with huge budgets.

Python and R are free software that can be downloaded by anyone.

You don’t require prior knowledge in programming to learn SAS, and its easy-to-use GUI makes it the easiest to learn of all the three.  The ability to parse SQL codes, combined with macros and other native packages make learning SAS child’s play for professionals with basic SQL knowledge.

To analyze data in Python, you will use data mining libraries like Pandas, Numpy, and Scipy. In other words, you won’t code in native Python language when analyzing data. The code you write in these libraries looks somewhat similar to the code you write in R. Hence, it is easier to learn R when you are already familiar with the Python data mining libraries. If you already know R, then you should learn the basics of Python programming language before you start to learn the Python data mining ecosystem.

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