Re: st: Stata 12: wish list

[Maarten buis <maartenbuis@yahoo.co.uk>]

--- On Tue, 2/11/10, Sridhar Telidevara wrote:
> The dual objectives of any software like stata are to assist
> 
> 1. Research, and
> 
> 2. Presentation of the results obtained from the research.
> 
> I believe that the former is more difficult to design that
> suits everybody's requirements. <snip>  However, the latter
> is easier and that is where lot of standardization can be
> made so that researchers do not have to spend their time
> breaking their heads figuring out how to insert mean in a
> box plot etc.

That is actually an excelent example of why the latter is 
less open to standardization. I would say that adding a mean
to a box plot is alien to the basic idea behind the box plot,
which means that my standard would be not to include the mean
in that plot. To quote Nick: "the great thing about standards 
is that there are so many to choose from". 

The problem that needs to be solved is that the presentation 
of results is influenced by the research question one wants 
to answer, the analysis one performed, the tradition in each 
specific sub-sub-discipline/journal, and ultimately taste. 
So I am sure there will be many complaints about the 
complexity of the syntax/menu when Stata comes up with a new
output system. That is the price we will have to pay in order
to be able to use the "standard" display of our choice.

-- Maarten

--------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Institut fuer Soziologie
Universitaet Tuebingen
Wilhelmstrasse 36
72074 Tuebingen
Germany

http://www.maartenbuis.nl
--------------------------


      

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