Re: st: Using version control software with Stata

[Maarten Buis <maartenlbuis@gmail.com>]

I have thought about it many years ago, but never done it. What works
for me is to work with directories. So for a program -simpplot- I have
a directory called "simpplot", and within that I have directories
called "1.0.0", "1.1.0", "1.2.0", etc. Whenever I want to change my
program I create a new directory with the new version number, copy the
latest version in it, and start working.

I make heavy use of the trick that when you -clear all- and then -cd-
to a directory with an .ado file in it, that .ado file will be loaded,
even if you installed another version (e.g. from SSC). The same is
true for the help files. So when working on a new version of
-simpplot- I want Stata to load that new version (and fail horribly,
so I can debug it...), so I -cd- to that directory. When I am working
on another project and want to use -simpplot- I typically want to use
the "official" version (the one from SSC), which is fortunately still
the default with this way of working.

This works for me because each of my programs are failry
self-contained and consist of only a small number of files (-hangroot-
is probably an exception).

Best,
Maarten


On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 6:23 AM, Timothy Mak <tshmak@hku.hk> wrote:
> Hi Statalist,
>
> I'm beginning to accumulate quite a lot of different do files and ado for the projects I'm working on, and am thinking of using a version control software to help me keep records of my programs. However, I don't have a computer programming background, and therefore no experience of using these things, and am not even sure it's something that's useful for do and ado files. However, if anyone on the list has experience to share in this regards, I'd very much love to hear.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Tim
>
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-- 
---------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
WZB
Reichpietschufer 50
10785 Berlin
Germany

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

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