Am 22.08.2020 um 18:29 schrieb Artur Tarassow:
> maybe this is of interest to some of you: "Which programming language is
> best for economic research: Julia, Matlab, Python or R?"
> https://voxeu.org/article/which-programming-language-best-economic-research?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
>
It's a strange article in some places: They claim that Python has clumsy
syntax for matrix multiplication, but they seem to have missed that the
@ operator was introduced just for that in Python 3.5 two years ago or
so. This is especially strange since that post is supposed to be an
update to the current state of affairs.
There are several other candidate packages that are strong programming languages that are missing from the review e.g.
- GAUSS
- Scilab (and the very underrated Grocer econometrics package)
- Ox
The commercial packages RATS and Stata have both GUI and a command language similar to gretl. I am sure that other users could add other packages .
>
> It's a pitty that people did not consider the gretl project. I am
> wondering whether "we" may re-run the same experiments for gretl for
> getting an idea how gretl would position.
> https://www.modelsandrisk.org/appendix/speed_2020/
Having comparisons is of course good, but personally I don't think that
gretl/hansl really wants to be a competitor for the "best programming
language to do economic research" (in general). In my view the scope is
much more focussed on econometrics.
I'm a little afraid that otherwise there might be misunderstandings and
disappointments. But of course we know that in some areas gretl is
extremely competitive.
I have recommended gretl to users who were required to use stata or eviews and feedback as a second package. Such users reported that results obtained using gretl were easier to understand. I would be very reluctant to use R, Julia, Python, in introductory or intermediate econometrics courses. I might recommend Matlab in an intermediate course. The process of learning Matlab often helps with the understanding of the use of linear algebra in econometrics.
Where gretl excels is in its ease of use, great presentation of output, good graphics, ability to output to WP or Latex, and good manuals. It is econometrics for econometricians (and economists). If you do want to do comparisons it should be with packages such as RATS or Stata and you will come out well. I have heard gretl compared to EVIEWS but replication problems with EVIEWS (unless one uses the completely separate EVIEWS command line) are serious enough, in my opinion, to rule EVIEWS out of contention.
John C Frain
3 Aranleigh Park