Re: st: How to re-program -save9- for Stata 13?

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Thanks, Stas. I imagine your answer summarises well the social and
personal reasons behind many choices.

There are always plenty such. For example, I don't use R over Stata
because I invested far too much time, energy and affection in learning
Stata to want to throw that away, long before R was evident.

On the more technical aside, one user privately pointed to
classification and regression trees as a strength of SPSS.
Nick
njcoxstata@gmail.com


On 15 October 2013 17:26, Stas Kolenikov <skolenik@gmail.com> wrote:
> Nick, it's a matter of habit, for the most part, I believe. It has
> traditionally been used by social scientists who collect their data,
> as it seems to have some sort of a data collection toolkit (which I
> have never used). People like the GUI... and you have even save the
> syntax from your point and click operations for later use! So that's
> as far as the strengths go. Some of the tabulations can be adjusted
> for a prettier output more conveniently than in Stata, though.
>
> Your question sounds a lot like "what drives people to use Stata if
> they also have access to R?" that we both have heard a lot on
> StackOverflow ;). So that's a disciplinary divide. A machine learning
> blogger would insert a snippet of R code into their post to clarify
> what they want to say without much thinking whether a different
> software may exist. An economist would insert a snippet of Stata code,
> as that is the language economists think in. Along these lines, public
> opinion researchers think in terms of SPSS syntax.
>
> -- Stas Kolenikov, PhD, PStat (ASA, SSC)
> -- Senior Survey Statistician, Abt SRBI
> -- Opinions stated in this email are mine only, and do not reflect the
> position of my employer
> -- http://stas.kolenikov.name
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Not to knock SPSS, although for many that qualifies as an acceptable
>> sport, but what drives people to use SPSS if they also have access to
>> Stata?
>>
>> I am not trying to be ironic here. It is (literally) decades, i.e.
>> sometime last century I think, since I last used SPSS, so I am quite
>> out of touch on its relative strengths.
>>
>> Please take as understood that some users prefer its user interface.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>>
>>
>> On 15 October 2013 16:05, Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Stas,
>>>
>>> Stata 8 and 9 share the same data format (specification 113), so
>>> although SPSS says it writes in 5-8, it should equally read and write
>>> 9 (perhaps the menu text was designed at the time Stata 9 did not
>>> exist yet). Here is another reference it supports 9:
>>> http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/mult_pkg/faq/fromStata_toSPSS.htm
>>>
>>> But introduction of reading Stata dataset capability was apparently
>>> added in version 14 (contrary to the above reference):
>>> http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/spssstat/v20r0m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.spss.statistics.help%2Fwhatsnew_14.0.htm
>>>
>>> Furthermore, it seems the request for support of newer Stata formats
>>> was requested still in the 17th generation of SPSS:
>>> http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21477575
>>>
>>> Best, Sergiy Radyakin
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 9:41 AM, Stas Kolenikov <skolenik@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Sergiy,
>>>>
>>>> regarding 2), I have access at work to SPSS 21 that seems to work with
>>>> Stata 8 files (at least their internal "Save As" gives options from
>>>> Stata 5 through Stata 8). From Stata 12 that I have at work, the
>>>> -save-d files (under version 12) cannot be read by SPSS, but -saveold-
>>>> produces the version-8-compatible data set that SPSS can work with.
>>>>
>>>> -- Stas Kolenikov, PhD, PStat (ASA, SSC)
>>>> -- Senior Survey Statistician, Abt SRBI
>>>> -- Opinions stated in this email are mine only, and do not reflect the
>>>> position of my employer
>>>> -- http://stas.kolenikov.name
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 7:46 AM, Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hello Marco,
>>>>>
>>>>> could you please explain a bit, why you see a need for such a program?
>>>>> If you have Stata 13, this means you can use -saveold- to save in the
>>>>> previous version, then following this FAQ all the way until version 5
>>>>> if necessary:
>>>>> http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/save-for-previous-version/
>>>>>
>>>>> If you don't have Stata 13, then you use -use13- to load the data into
>>>>> Stata 10 or later.
>>>>> http://radyakin.org/transfer/use13/use13.htm
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So I see potential clients as:
>>>>> 1) people having Stata 9 and no access to newer versions;
>>>>> 2) people having non-Stata software that can read dta format of 9, but
>>>>> not newer and the software is not going to be updated, and there is no
>>>>> access to Stata 10+
>>>>>
>>>>> Regarding 1) I was told the # is pretty small, but I don't know what
>>>>> 'small' really is. Regarding 2) I am interested in what is out there
>>>>> (regardless whether maintained or not). Can we have a headcount of the
>>>>> programs that directly read Stata datasets? Let me start:
>>>>> ADePT v.5.50.5001.23617 (supports data from Stata 8 to 13)
>>>>> ADePT Map v2 (supports data from Stata 8-11)
>>>>> R (with package foreign) (supports data from Stata 5 to 12)
>>>>> SPSS v.15+ (supports data from Stata X?X to 9?)
>>>>> Stat/Transfer (supports data from any version of Stata)
>>>>> etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regarding the implementation it is not at all difficult: the current
>>>>> code of use13 and use10 contains all the necessary procedures to
>>>>> implement save9 which I can do if there is any significant demand.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best, Sergiy Radyakin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 8:54 AM, Marco Ercolani <m.g.ercolani@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>>> Dear Statalisters,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am asking for suggestions on how I can re-program -save9- so that it will work in Stata 13.
>>>>>> In other words, so it will save data in a Stata 9 format from within Stata 13.
>>>>>> I can think of two possible strategies to achieve this within Stata 13:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Strategy 1: Edit the contents of the dataset so they conform to Stata 9 protocols, save the file,
>>>>>> then edit the the file header so that it appears to have been saved by Stata 9.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Strategy 2: Use an existing save facility in Stata 13 that would allow me to impose limits on the
>>>>>> data so it respects Stata 9 protocols. Does such a save facility exist?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any help on the above two approaches or helpful suggestions for a "third way" would be welcome.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Marco Ercolani
>>>>>>  Department of Economics
>>>>>>  University of Birmingham
>>>>>>
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