I would just add the way options are handled in user writen programs, both
with and without a syntax statement
are extreemly elegant
Others on my list have been mentioned like
update
bysort:
_n and _N in combination with by
findit
stuff returned i r() and e()
predict in/out-of sample
locals
post-estimation test commands
labels
I think the data format stuff is good but not very easy to use, so I think
it should be on both top ten and buttom ten ;-)
Lars
On Sun, 23 May 2004, Nick Cox wrote:
> On Friday 21 May 2004 I asked
>
> Which would we nominate as (say) the top ten tricks which are the
> deepest and most Stataish features in what we use? What is _both_
> simple _and_ deep? What leads to great results with at most a few
> lines of code?
>
> ...
>
> I'd nominate straight away
>
> 1. -by:-.
>
> 2. -foreach- or -forval- with varlists or numlists.
>
> 3. -merge-. I rarely use it but -merge-masters have real leverage
> in file manipulations.
>
> 4. -assert-. My candidate for the most underestimated command in
> Stata (second is -count-).
>
> 5. -reshape-.
>
> Any other nominations?
>
> Nick
> [email protected]
>
> =============================================
>
> Here is a compilation of responses, edited a bit. I omitted some
> very general comments and the most facetious suggestions. I don't
> think everyone was playing exactly the same game, not that it
> matters....
>
> Thanks to
> Judith Abrams, Alan Acock, Renzo Comolli, Rafa De Hoyos,
> Adrian de la Garza, Peter Jepsen, SamL, Arnold Levinson.
> Clive Nicholas, Bill Rising, Amani Siyam, Antoine Terracol,
> Clint Thompson, John Wallace, Richard Williams, Fred Wolfe
>
> =============================================
>
> -assert- (Judith Abrams, Clint Thompson)
>
> -by:- (Bill Rising, Antoine Terracol)
>
> -char- (Renzo Comolli, Bill Rising)
>
> -collapse- (Amani Siyam)
>
> -collin- (very generous amounts of well-organised output) (Clive
> Nicholas)
>
> -compress- (Bill Rising)
>
> -destring- (Rafa De Hoyos)
>
> -egen- (Amani Siyam, Antoine Terracol)
>
> -encode- (Clint Thompson)
> -encode- gets you a lot of bang for the buck: conversion of a
> string variable into a numeric with simultaneous labeling of the
> values with the original string information (John Wallace)
>
> -est table- (Clive Nicholas)
>
> comparing Stata to the competition the most useful command for me
> is -findit- (Alan Acock)
>
> -for- (especially the old one) (Judith Abrams)
> -for*- (-foreach- etc.) (Bill Rising)
>
> -generate- (Clive Nicholas)
>
> -insheet- (Clive Nicholas)
>
> -lexis- (Amani Siyam)
>
> macrolist, macros (Fred Wolfe)
>
> -margin- (very fast) (Clive Nicholas)
>
> -matrix score- (Rafa De Hoyos)
>
> -outreg- (very versatile) (Clive Nicholas)
>
> I very much like -predict-. I especially like that it can be run
> on something other than the estimation sample. Indeed, I
> sometimes temporarily wipe out the "real" data, type in some
> hypothetical values, run -predict-, and then restore the original
> data. This can be quite useful for making things like logistic
> regression more tangible, where it is hard to see what impact
> variables actually have. I also like -adjust- for similar reasons.
> (Richard Williams)
>
> -recode- (Bill Rising)
>
> the versatile options of -regress-, particularly -beta- and -hc3-
> (Clive Nicholas)
>
> -reshape- (Renzo Comolli, Amani Siyam)
> The fact that you can easily swap between long and wide data
> formats once it has been run is especially convenient, and
> unexpectedly useful for a lot of what I do. (John Wallace)
>
> -return list-. Or rather, all the good things stored in r().
> (Peter Jepsen)
>
> -set memory-, for its optimisation in the use of resources (Rafa
> De Hoyos)
>
> -ssc install- (Clive Nicholas)
>
> -statsby- is my new favourite command. I almost never use
> -collapse- since I discovered how to use -statsby-. (John Wallace)
>
> -stset- (Peter Jepsen, Bill Rising)
>
> -sum()- (Fred Wolfe)
>
> the -svy- commands (Rafa De Hoyos)
> For working with complex-sample survey data (as I do all the
> time), the -svy- suite is Top 10 for simple syntax, flexibility
> (especially now that the -subpop()- option accepts -if- statements),
> comprehensive output and the same post-estimation approaches used
> for non-survey estimation programs. (Arnold Levinson)
>
> -syntax- (Bill Rising)
>
> I also very much like the -test- command and its variations.
> (Richard Williams)
>
> -tabulate-, particularly with use of the -all- option (Clive
> Nicholas)
>
> I still use -tokenize- a lot. (Antoine Terracol)
>
> -update- (Bill Rising)
> -update- because, with one word (i.e., simple) it allows users to
> easily and quickly stay abreast of the latest developments, and
> thus is a fundamental (i.e., deep) aspect of the continued
> evolution of all the other commands. (SamL)
>
> -xi:- (Clive Nicholas)
>
> _n & _N (Peter Jepsen, Antoine Terracol)
>
> all the string functions: -substr(), -trim()-, -length()-, etc.
> (Adrian de la Garza)
>
> treating true as 1 and false as 0 (Bill Rising)
>
> some of Scott Long's extensions for limited dependent variables
> have to be included as well (Alan Acock)
>
> Nick
> [email protected]
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email protected]
> > [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Alan Acock
> > Sent: 23 May 2004 00:12
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: st: Top 10 Tricks in Stata
> >
> >
> > Maybe it is too obvious but comparing Stata to the
> > competition the most
> > useful command for me is
> > findit xxxx
> > Some of Long's extensions for limited dependent variables have to be
> > included as well
> >
> > Alan Acock
> > [email protected]
> >
> > *
> > * For searches and help try:
> > * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
> >
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
..............................................
: Lars Korsholm Ph.D., :
: Department of Statistics :
: University of Southern Denmark :
: Sdr. Boulevard 23A, 2. :
: DK-5000 Odense C :
: Phone +45 6550 3608 (or 3868) :
: Mobil +45 3033 3617 :
: Fax +45 6595 7766 :
: Mail [email protected] :
: Web http://www.biostat.sdu.dk/~korsholm :
:............................................:
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
