Programming Languages for Statistical Computation

Summary

Several workers in the field of statistical computation have pointed to the need for a statistical package which would include a programming language specifically designed for statistical applications [3].

Some interest has been shown in the possible applicability of the functional programming style. For example an implementation of a statistical language based on the functional programming language Lisp has been carried out by Tierney [8]. The general purpose language S has also been designed and written with statistical programming in mind by Chambers [1].

With the aim of providing a flexible approach to designing a language for statistical computation the authors have created a programming language prototyping system. This system allows rapid implementation of interpreters for new and mutually quite different languages, all of which are based on a core of statistical routines. Examples of the use of a working prototype, SOL, are given. SOL incorporates generalized linear modelling facilities in a Pascal-like framework extended to include functional language facilities.