At 07:19 AM 5/23/2003 -0400, you wrote:
This is exactly the capability provided by Stata's "net" command, with the
advantage that one is not forced to subsidize Bill Gates to use it.
[snip]... It is not just non-updated Windozers and Mac OS X users--what
about the increasing number of Linux users out there, or those (like
myself) that make heavy use of Unix?
There is strong anti-MS sentiment in this posting. I don't disagree with
it, but it also isn't fair to pigeon-hole me as a MS fan, either, because
of our use of Windows. It IS nice that we had control over what software,
computers, and OS are being used by the 15+ users of our web-based archive,
so platform is not an issue for those outside our network. So your point
about OS independence isn't currently relevant to our situation, though the
point was it would be nice to have this stata command work with the web, so
it COULD be platform independent; it was not an endorsement of WinXP.
The SSC archive runs with an 'ado archive system'--the .pkg files are
autogenerated/updated from the RePEc templates which describe each archive
entry, and the .toc files are automatically updated for new entries when a
change is made. The Distribution-Date is also modified in that process.
This is done with some fairly small and simple perl routines. There is no
need to abandon the flexibility of Stata's "net from" tools in order to
create customized ado-file collections (and since a package can contain
'ancillary files' such as data files...) I can readily imagine a true
archive where the prior version of a routine would be moved to a separate
directory, allowing version tracking a la CVS.
We looked into this, but no where have I seen public programs that help
archive older versions of ado files. In fact, I was about to use all of
these -net- functions through a custom-made program, but we ran into a few
problems:
1) we wanted easy access to previous versions for use with earlier
data sets, Stata versions
2) we want to be able to update an ado/hlp file with one simple
Stata command-line (doable with custom work)
3) we wanted to put in a "shell" of sorts such that a one-line
command to retrieve this info could be done and the resulting file(s) would
be saved in the personal dir, rather than stb (ie. -net set ado PERSONAL-)
since these files should all exist there already (yes, this is something
that we use since most of our ado files aren't generalized and are made for
our particular data sets. Also is easier to find/edit when not looking
through tons of the public ado files we've downloaded/used over the
years). This cannot be done with the current net system (*.pkg files), we
can only tell the user to change this setting beforehand or give them a
pre-button to select.
So, I just created a new, Stata-exclusive program that does all of this
with one-line Stata commands (either to update your computer (getnewado) or
to post a new version/file (putnewado) or see what's changed on the
archive). Works great except for the web -confirm file- problem.
If your SSC ado archive system is easy and available, please tell us
more! (especially if getting a "true" archive of previous versions is
optional) :)
Also, I am still curious as to what Stata does to check the existence of
these web files checked using the -net- commands if -confirm file- isn't
used.
I imagine someone in the know @ StataCorp will answer that.
Wisdom from your and their experiences are appreciated.
Thanks,
Kaleb...
Arthritis Research Center
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