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Re: st: Re: value labels for string variables


From   "Erik �. S�rensen" <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: st: Re: value labels for string variables
Date   Sun, 27 Oct 2002 11:36:49 -0500

On s�ndag, okt 27, 2002, at 10:51 America/Montreal, baum wrote:
I don't see the issue here.
The issue is only one of convenience. Sometimes, in particular for interactive use and exploration, it would have been convenient to have string value labels. Convenience is not a minor issue -- if it were, I would have chosen to do all statistical programming in C rather than Stata.

My work is on yearly files 1986--2000 with on average about 4E6 individuals in each file. A group of people use these files, and I should not change them on disk merely because it is convenient for /me/. Constantly merging in other files is a nuisance for interactive use (dealing with these data is slow enough as it is). Most people probably work on smaller data sets where keeping local modified versions is sensible, but I think enough people have data of this size to make it worthwile to modify Stata itself if it would not slow Stata down a lot.

It is not my intent to be difficult about this, if someone can come up with a good reason why Stata should /not/ have string labels, I am willing to modify my opinion. That a workaround is possible is not in itself a good reason.

kind regards,
Erik

--
Erik �. S�rensen, <http://www.geocities.com/erik_oiolf/>.
phd student (economics), Norwegian School of Economics.
currently visiting Queen's University, Kingston Ontario.

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