Sorry, but b. water's argument here, so far as I can understand it, is
quite unconvincing. I don't want to get into speculation about the
circumstances of the original questioner, which are quite beside the point.
If people do not want Stata solutions to Stata problems, they should either
(1) refrain from posting questions on Statalist
or
(2) specify explicitly that for one or more bizarre reason (e.g. taste, unwillingness
to learn Stata, whatever) that they want a non-Stata solution. That would certainly
help people to decide whether to answer them.
Nick
[email protected]
b. water
> all criticisms accepted, my suggestions has indeed many
> pitfalls. yang li
> could see most pitfalls as stated by michael (blasnik) and
> nick (cox) -
> possibly more that remain unstated. consider these though
> (and this is not a
> counter-argument/excuse):
>
> 1. yang li needs to do this one piece of work and it involves
> stata and
> never again has to work with stata - might not worth the time
> to learn it.
>
> 2. yang li needs to do use stata for first time but no access
> to manuals,
> learning resources except help, faq's, listers and ucla ats
> and no helping
> hand within vicinity.
>
> 3. yang li is not famililar with stata commands or use of the
> drop down
> menus
>
> 4. yang li is more likely to be familiar with excel (but not
> perhaps its
> shortcomings as data/statistical management tools) because of its
> ubiquitousness.
>
> in short there is differing level of user initial experience
> with stata and
> expertise and what s/he wants to get out of the list/stata,
> whilst the best
> bet is to learn (as i have and still am) and harness stata in
> the medium to
> long term, in the meantime, there is pending task - hence my
> suggestion,
> merely an interim. it may, may not help yang li but at least
> it can be seen
> how else things can be done.
> >From: "Michael Blasnik" <[email protected]>
> >Reply-To: [email protected]
> >To: <[email protected]>
> >Subject: Re: st: variables copy
> >Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 08:26:32 -0500
> >
> >This is a terrible idea on many levels -- not only can you
> lose precision
> >and labeling, not only does it require you to do something
> that isn't
> >documented or automatically repeatable (through do/log
> files), but why
> >would you ever want to tediously cut and paste columns in
> Excel when you
> >could much more easily just type drop or keep in Stata?
> These aren't
> >tricky commands.
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