Re: RE: st: Converting a SAS datastep to Stata

[wgould@stata.com (William Gould, StataCorp LP)]

I just sent a posting to Statalist concerning Daniel Feenberg's
<feenberg@nber.org> SAS-to-Stata issue.

Others have replied, too, and many are saying, "Use Mata!".

I'm a little embarrassed because, concerning Mata, I merely ended my 
posting with, 

> Daniel could use Mata.  That would address both the readability and
> efficiency issues.  If I were writing this code for the first time,
> that is what I would do, probably.  With Mata, I can go through the
> observations one at a time just as SAS does.

I'm embarrassed because I am the author of the "Mata Matters" column 
in the SJ.  I'm supposedly qualified because I'm the author of Mata, too, 
but the editors of the SJ may be reconsidering.

So please pretend I too said, "Use Mata!" and added a lot of useful 
comments about Mata.  Mata is, in fact, very appropriate for
Daniel's problem.

I didn't push the Mata solution for two reasons:  (1) I pretty much 
ignored efficiency issues and (2) I was unsure of how much Mata 
Daniel knew.  Assuming efficiency is not Daniel's primary concern, 
and assuming time-of-implementation is, I stand behind my Stata solution.

I don't want to be thought of as one-sided. 

Cheers, 

-- Bill
wgould@stata.com
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