Comparison of computer programs for simple linear L 1 regression

A number of efficient computer codes are available for the simple linear L 1 regression problem. However, a number of these codes can be made more efficient by utilizing the least squares solution. In fact, a couple of available computer programs already do so. We report the results of a computational study comparing several openly available computer programs for solving the simple linear L 1 regression problem with and without computing and utilizing a least squares solution.