Courses in Statistical Computing and Computational Statistics

Although the use of the computer for things like E-mail and Web surfing or for classroom demonstrations of the central limit theorem are important, the following comments do not address those activities.

Abstract

Statisticians spend a large portion of their working days using the computer. In addition to the standard things that almost everyone does, like E-mail and text processing, and the standard uses teachers make of computers in the classroom, statisticians' use of computers includes data analysis with prepackaged software, development of algorithms and software to implement new statistical methods, Monte Carlo simulation to study the performance of statistical procedures, and mathematical analysis using symbolic processing software. Although the use of the computer for things like E-mail and Web surfing or for classroom demonstrations of the central limit theorem are important, the following comments do not address those activities. I should also make a disclaimer about any specific software package I mention in the following. There are many good software packages in each of the relevant areas of application and of the general types of software; my mention of specific packages is not meant to imply that those packages are any better or any worse than other packages. (Also, some names are trademarked, and my use of the name without a mark designation does not imply an acceptable generic use of the name.)