Re: st: Using version control software with Stata

[William Buchanan <william@williambuchanan.net>]

I've used Git for a larger scale project I've been working on since this fall and plan to continue its use to maintain version control once the programs are launched as production code in the organization.  I personally find Git to be extremely helpful/useful since it is easy to track any/all minute changes over time and always have some ability to roll back without maintaining X# of different versions of the programs.  However, for do files I'd be more likely to keep track of the changes using comments within the code itself.  

It really depends on what your specific needs are and the amount of updating that you anticipate making.  

HTH,
Billy

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 28, 2014, at 5:26, Maarten Buis <maartenlbuis@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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