The reference is to a blog maintained by Andrew Gelman.
I've got to say I barely recognised Stata (or Mata)
from some of the contributions to that particular thread.
A few people didn't seem either well informed or much
experienced in using Stata. The comment about Mata
quoted below is one example. Another is the criticism of Mata for
"Yet Another Haphazard Syntax". That is a pretty
strange comment given that Mata is consciously C-like.
I was interested to see the news that [punctuation
and spelling edited]
"SPSS has integrated Python as a programming language
into its syntax. It means that you can run SPSS through
the GUI, through its own syntax, through VBA or through
Python. The Python extension gives you 'real' programming
control over SPSS, which you never previously had."
It will be intriguing to see how many SPSS users
come out and reveal themselves as frustrated Python
programmers.
To be fair, I must now flag that I am not well informed
or much experienced in using SPSS.
Nick
[email protected]
Joseph Coveney
> Maarten Buis wrote (excerpted):
>
> . . . For more on this comparison, see the comments on this post:
> http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007/0
> 8/they_started_me.html
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
>
> One of the responders to that post wrote that Mata is "Yet
> Another Control
> Language (they're not really programming languages . . .)".
>
> I've been under the impression since my days using BMD and
> SPSS and later
> using BMDP and SAS that a control language governs the execution of
> procedures, as in the SAS programs that essentially invoke SAS PROCs.
>
> In that sense, a control languages "aren't really a
> programming languages"
> and I would on that basis assume that what I call a control
> language is what
> that responder meant by the term, as well.
>
> But that doesn't fit Mata at all.
>
> Is anyone aware of another meaning of "control language" that would
> reconcile this discrepancy?
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