SAS or Minitab?

Question

As an aspiring data scientist, which statistical environment/package should I learn first: SAS or Minitab?

Answer

Is "neither" an answer? I’d argue that Python or R should be your first tool to learn as an aspiring data scientist.

SAS is a proprietary software that can be expensive to obtain unless you happened to work for a company or an educational program that already has the license. Plus, it is increasingly common that new data scientist job openings will require you to use R or Python, as opposed to SAS.

I am surprised how Minitab even make into the mix. Minitab is typically used for descriptive statistics work, not so much statistical modeling.

(Original answered on quora: As an aspiring data scientist, which statistical environment/package should I learn first: SAS or Minitab?)