On Aug 4, 2004, at 2:32 PM, Nick Cox wrote:
This is a question largely for StataCorp,
Fair enough.
but one mundane answer is the need to list these
patterns horizontally on the monitor and in log files.
OK, I see why that might be -- but surely the preferred behavior of
-xtdes- is not to _falsely_ claim that i*t do not identify all
observations just because the subsequent table might be too wide!
Also, I doubt that anyone is going to eyeball tables
with several hundred columns even if their monitor or
printer paper is really big.
If -xtdes- were to use 100 as the default width, and not print the
table if width > 100, I would have no problem with that. Even better,
if the user specified a width(#) option with # > 100, then -xtdes-
could interpret that as an indication that the user really does want to
see several hundred columns. But regardless, I respectfully suggest
that the information passed to the user regarding the "unique
identification" of the panel should be independent of the width option,
and accurate for any size panel.
I understand from the FAQ that one should be reticent from claiming
any behavior in Stata reflects a bug -- so I shall not, but this sure
seems to be leaning in that direction.
Nick
[email protected]
Michael Hanson
Which brings me to the question: why even bother
setting a default width, let alone setting it so low?
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