R and Other Free Statistical Analysis Software.

A recent discussion on the Progressive Exchange listserve provided this gem of a link for those looking for affordable statistical analysis software: The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources

There was also a fair amount of discussion about R, which is an open source statistical programming language which mirrors the common stats language S. The consensus was that R is a powerful and useful tool for analyzing and visualizing datasets - but it's really, well, a statistical programming language, meaning that it's going to require a substantial learning curve, especially for those who don't programming and statistics experience.