Clive Nicholas <[email protected]> wrote
CN> On this interesting point, are version updates announced to the list? I
CN> don't remember seeing one about 8.2. And yes, I know about -update q-!
after Nick Cox wrote,
NC> Stata users sometimes have to resort to "StataCorpology", which is
NC> basically guessing in the dark on the basis of smoke signals, wild
NC> surmise, what was mentioned at users' meetings, etc.; as StataCorp will
NC> not, on the whole, announce in public (a) what major projects they are
NC> working on or (b) when they are going to be released, until just before
NC> release. (And historically Statalisters get an edge on every other form
NC> of public announcement.)
but before Marcello Pagano wrote,
MP> Good idea. We can suggest that. Bill?
Okay, we will announce Stata new subreleases on Statalist.
As I said at the user meetings in London and Berlin last year, rather than
holding back all new developments until the big new release, we are adoptiong
a policy of releasing some new features as we go, for free and so, I said,
users will see Stata 8.1, 8.2, etc., among the updates.
It is, as a practical matter, difficult for us to hold back new code and then
release it all on one date. Moreover, as a release got older, we at StataCorp
become more disconnected from our users, because the Stata we were working
with was so different from that which users had. We were seeing cases where
unknowing users were spending time implementing features which we had already
implemented, and yet we were sworn to secrecy.
I hasten to add: Just because an update has a new subrelease number, that
does not necessarily imply that it is a "bigger" update than an update with
the same subrelease number. We change subrelease numbers to handle
incompatibilities. In Stata 8.2, something changed, for the better, but with
the side effect that Stata would do something different given the same input
from the user. To prevent that imporovement from causing problems with
do-files and ado-files that users have written, the version number changed.
Programs and do-files that said -version 8.1- or -version 8- at the top will
continue to work as anticipated.
Now the fact is, that when the version number changes, something neater
probably has been introduced or changed than when the version number does not
change. That is because, neat things tend to cause syntax problems. It is
nontheless possible that we could add a new feature to Stata -- a really big
new feature -- but that inclusion of the new feature has no side effects
whatsoever. In that case, we would not change the subversion number.
All of which is to say, you really do need to read -help whatsnew-.
-- Bill
[email protected]
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