Re: st: Unable to create local macro in modified ado-file (xtreg_fe.ado)

[Richard Williams <richardwilliams.ndu@gmail.com>]

At 09:47 AM 1/17/2012, Nick Cox wrote:
> 3. Although there can be exceptions I don't think user-programmers are
> well advised to take Stata's own files and modify them. The exceptions
> are when you can understand everything you are modifying and the
> consequences of so doing. This in turn raises several distinct issues
> but I will stick to the most positive: You will best understand what
> you create for yourself. (Writing wrappers for Stata's own files is in
> contrast usually a very good strategy.)

For me it is more of an issue when looking at old user-written 
commands. Stata keeps its commands working and updated from one 
version of Stata to the next. But, there are user-written commands 
that never get updated and hence don't take advantage of Stata's new 
features. For example, writing gologit2 was a bit of a challenge 
because the original gologit was written for version 5 and I didn't 
have documentation for many of the commands used.

As for me, I have Stata 7 through 12 on my machine. Not because I 
have any great desire to use Stata 7 (indeed, it looks awful now, 
although it seemed great at the time) but because access to the help 
files is sometimes handy.


-------------------------------------------
Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
OFFICE: (574)631-6668, (574)631-6463
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EMAIL:  Richard.A.Williams.5@ND.Edu
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