RE: st: RE: -clemao_io- broken in Stata 9? - Addendum

[Richard Williams <Richard.A.Williams.5@ND.edu>]

At 11:00 AM 6/17/2005 +0100, Nick Cox wrote:
> I want to comment generally on the idea
> of version control. There seems to be a
> folklore idea that version control is a
> Stata variant on time travel, so that
> saying (e.g.)
>
> version 7
>
> means that everything is exactly as it
> was when Stata 7 was what you were dealing
> with. This is not so. The only way to
> experience the totality of Stata 7
> is to use Stata 7.
Quite true, but it is a folklore idea spread by Stata itself.  From the 
online help for version:

"version # allows old programs to run correctly under more recent versions 
of Stata and ensures that new programs will run correctly under future 
versions of Stata... Programs and do-files written as of earlier releases 
should include the appropriate version line at the top.  All programs 
distributed by StataCorp have this.  Thus old programs work even if Stata 
has changed...  some changes in Stata will break old programs unless the 
version number is set back to the appropriate version number.  The list 
below outlines these important changes.  This list is likely of interest 
only to those trying to update an old program to a new version's syntax -- 
most people will just set the version number appropriately instead and not 
worry about any of this."

I'm amazed that version control works as well as it does, but it still 
doesn't work quite as well as the official documentation would have you 
believe.  User-written programs are a great feature of Stata but trying to 
keep all of these working as new versions are released must be a great 
challenge for Stata.

-------------------------------------------
Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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