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From | "Muenchen, Robert A (Bob)" <muenchen@utk.edu> |
To | Christopher Baum <kit.baum@bc.edu> |
Subject | RE: st: Popularity of R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Statistica, S-PLUS updated |
Date | Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:46:32 +0000 |
Hi Kit, That's very interesting indeed! 1,407 packages on SSC alone is an impressive figure. I suspect that the growth curve of Stata packages would look similar to the one for R. Perhaps less exponential just because it has been around longer. Or perhaps more S-shaped over time. The one for R has got to slow down into an S-shape eventually. Thanks, Bob >-----Original Message----- >From: Christopher Baum [mailto:kit.baum@bc.edu] >Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 10:17 AM >To: Muenchen, Robert A (Bob) >Cc: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu >Subject: Re: st: Popularity of R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Statistica, S-PLUS updated > >Hi Bob, > >Those stats are only available monthly. The stats accessed by -ssc hot- within >Stata are available quite a bit farther back, but they are not counts of raw >downloads. In any case what is being counted on report.ssc.html is the download >of individual files. Many packages (the equivalent of R packages) contain a >number of files (all contain at least 2, but some contain many more). Thus the >stats accessible within Stata are counts of package downloads,not file >downloads. See my posting near the beginning of each month (except this month, >when it was later) on SSC Activity for the top 25 package counts. > >I can count how many packages are on SSC (1,407 at this moment) but I do not >know how many are on STB/SJ, UCLA, etc. In any case such counts are >overlapping, as often a package shows up first on SSC, then appears in the SJ, >then is updated on SSC (and possibly on SJ). So there is some amount of >duplication between SSC and SJ/STB. In some cases packages on SSC become >redundant for users of the latest version of Stata, as it may contain an official >command with that functionality. But I would say the vast majority of public Stata >packages are either in SSC and/or STB/SJ archives. > >Cheers >Kit > >On Mar 25, 2011, at 9:52 AM, Muenchen, Robert A (Bob) wrote: > >> That's very helpful information. I've switched the URL to point to: >> http://fmwww.bc.edu/fmrc/reports/report.ssc.html >> >> That link has a rich set of information regarding downloads: hourly, daily, >weekly. Is yearly download data available? If it is, it would make a great addition >to the paper. >> >> Are there counts of the total packages there now? By year? >> >> Does anyone know what percent of the total of the main repositories are at >SSC? To find equivalent info for R I chose only the biggest, CRAN, and ran a >program to count the unique package names (2,849 on 3/25). I then selected all 9 >major repositories and ran it again (4,338). So while yearly total number of R >packages is known only for CRAN, we can estimate that the growth curve shown >in Figure 9 (http://r4stats.com/popularity) is 66% of the total. Individuals still >have their own sets, but probably a relatively small number. I would *love* to >have similar data for Stata! >> >> Thanks, >> Bob >> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner- >>> statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Christopher Baum >>> Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 1:27 PM >>> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu >>> Subject: re: Re: st: Popularity of R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Statistica, >>> S-PLUS updated >>> >>> <> >>> Nick Cox pointed out, in re "Popularity", >>> >>> In this document there is a repeated misunderstanding. Downloads from >>> SSC (repec), as members of this list will generally know, are only >>> one way of downloading user-written packages for Stata. Indeed >>> another main way, through the Stata Journal and Stata Technical >>> Bulletin websites, predates SSC. Data for such downloads are >>> proprietary to StataCorp. It's my guess that they are easily the same order of >magnitude as SSC downloads. >>> >>> >>> Actually, it is worse than that. The Muenchen document states >>> >>> Similar figures for downloads of Stata add-ons (not Stata itself) are >>> available at >>> http://logec.repec.org/scripts/itemstat.pf?type=redif-software. However, >both R and Stata have other significant repositories that do not provide such >counts. >>> >>> This is quite misleading. The LogEc count referred to by that URL is >>> the count of .ado, .hlp, .sthlp, .mlib files downloaded from the SSC >>> Archive via web browser links. On each web browser page, users are >>> strongly encouraged NOT to download software this way (and that it >>> will probably fail if they are Windows users). Nevertheless, a >>> nontrivial number do so; this statistic might be termed the 'bozo >>> count'. But those counts are a serious underestimate of download >>> activity from the SSC Archive, as the recommended technique to >>> perform these downloads is from within Stata using the -ssc- command, >>> and a much larger number of Stata users download using this >>> recommendation. Such downloads are not tracked by RePEc services, but >>> they are tracked by the web server which satisfies Stata's requests. >>> So the URL above should be removed from the "Popularity" document. A >>> URL which gives a snapshot of download activity over a recent month >>> is >>> >>> http://fmwww.bc.edu/fmrc/reports/report.ssc.html >>> >>> Much more readable stats are available from within Stata, using -ssc >>> hot-, but that of course requires that you use Stata. >>> >>> Nick's point -- that downloads of user-written software involve the >>> SJ/STB Archive, the UCLA archive and various users' sites -- is of course well >taken. >>> >>> Kit >>> >>> Kit Baum | Boston College Economics and DIW Berlin | >>> http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html >>> An Introduction to Stata Programming | http://www.stata- >>> press.com/books/isp.html >>> An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata | http://www.stata- >>> press.com/books/imeus.html >>> >>> >>> * >>> * For searches and help try: >>> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search >>> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq >>> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/ >> >> > > >Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) >http://repec.org > > > > * * For searches and help try: * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/