Re: st: Convention for replacing an existing routine on SSC with a revision that has major syntax changes.

[Austin Nichols <austinnichols@gmail.com>]

David Elliott <dcelliott@gmail.com> :
I like Nick's suggestion (3) in general, but in your case, why not
just call the new version -chunk- and add a reference to the help file
in -chunky- that deprecates it in favor of the new -chunk-?

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Austin Nichols
<austinnichols@gmail.com> wrote:
> David Elliott <dcelliott@gmail.com> :
> If the original version does not use Mata, it may be version 8 compatible; see
> ssc d ivreg28
> for how the authors of ivreg2 differentiate the old and new versions.
>
> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 9:55 AM, David Elliott <dcelliott@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The subject line above almost says it all.
>>
>> I have completely rewritten my file chunking routine -chunky- to use a
>> different and far more efficient chunking strategy using Mata for the
>> file I/O.  It is basically a completely different program.  I am
>> currently calling it -chunky_mata- to during testing to distinguish it
>> from -chunky- but it is my intent to completely supplant the original
>> routine which, quite frankly, was an ugly kludge for which I am almost
>> ashamed to claim ownership.
>>
>> The syntax has changed from:
>> chunky using filename , index(#) chunk(#) saving(filename[, replace])
>> to
>> chunky using filename ,[ [peek(#) analyze] | [chunksize(#.#)
>> header(string) stub(string) replace]
>>
>> What is the convention for replacing a routine that will "break" any
>> previous programs written using it?
>>
>> I appreciate your guidance.
>>
>> DC Elliott
>

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