Dear all
Recently, I posted an enquiry re use of classification tree software. Thank you to all those who replied. There was a geat deal of overlap in many of these responses and so I have merged many of them where approrpiate for the perusal to those of you who are interested. Thank you very much to all of those who replied.
Original enquiry:
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Hello
I am interested in exploring classification trees with suitable statistical software. I understand that SPSS provides an add-on module for this purpose, but the additional annual cost to my institution for this module would be £450. Has anyone had successful experience of using alternative software in connection with classification trees, where an additional fee was not involved?
Best wishes
Margaret
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Feedback:
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1. S-Plus
2. Have a look at R (http://www.r-project.org/), it's open source, i.e.
free.
3. R is free and it has a version of the CART tree program. Google "CRAN"
to
find R software.
4. There are at least two packages in R: tree and rpart (so naturally the
fee is nothing).
In connection with rpart: once you have installed R, go
into help (HTML), packages and you will see the rpart help link.
5. There is plenty of CART functionality available in R.
A plain R install comes with the rpart package implementing
the ideas from Breiman et al. 's book. Other packages
are listed at
http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Views/MachineLearning.html
under the Recursive Partitioning bullet.
P.S. In many R related books, a chapter is devoted to
classification trees: Venables and Ripley (2002^4),
Everitt and Hothorn (2006), Braun and Maindonald (2006^2), etc.
I've been successfully using R (and its classification tree
functionality) for many years as a statistical consultant
delivering services to the financial and pharmaceutical
industries.
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