Date:         Mon, 18 May 1998 21:55:50 +0200
Reply-To:     Magnus Mengelbier <magnusm@IBM.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Magnus Mengelbier <magnusm@IBM.NET>
Subject:      Re: Re[2]: graphic software
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello SAS-L
 
I have experience of several packages for generating graphics and consider the later S-Plus versions, Axum (same MathSoft/StatSci who gave us S-Plus), and Minitab (windows version) the better ones.  These are the best I have seen for some time.  They are the most flexible systems, but unfourtunately with a learning curve.  Trellis, which is available in both S-Plus and Axum, is by far one of the most powerfull graphic function groups.
 
I agree with Jack Hamilton that a coherent graph is up to the person designing the graph, not the application.  I consider any restrictions imposed on the "user" by the program in an effort to unclutter the graph inherently very dangerous.  To create a great graph is always difficult regardless of the package.
 
S-Plus from MathSoft is en extension of S created at then Bell Labs in NJ.
Axum is a subset of S-Plus
 
best regards
Magnus
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From:   Jack Hamilton [SMTP:jack_hamilton@HCCOMPARE.COM]
Sent:    den 18 maj 1998 18:39
To:     SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Subject:        Re[2]: graphic software
 
Kin Cheung <cheung@MATH.BU.EDU> wrote:
 
>  The graphic software that you need is "Splus". It is
>very user friendly and the ability to do any form of a
>graph is beyond anyone's imagination. Try it out.
 
Beyond the imagination of the people who wrote it?
 
I'm not sure that this is a good thing.  The temptation to gussy up
graphs "just because you can" does not always lead to pleasing results.
Edward Tufte says that graphics shouldn't contain any more pixels than
are necessary to convey the required information.  I wouldn't go quite
that far, but there are certainly a lot of graphs which are so fancy that
they are difficult to interpret.