On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Pancho Villa<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Nick Cox<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Not asking the question you really have is a pretty inefficient way to
>> proceed.
>
> ... unless asking the question in full adds a lot of detail irrelevant
> to finding a sufficiently good answer.
>
Which is why you could/should construct a minimalist example that
demonstrates the problem using a data set that is available to all,
and doesn't require irrelevant detail to explain the problem you are
having. After all other are using their "free" time to answer your
question, putting a little effort in to clarify the question in such a
manner is only being mindful of this.
>> That aside, the mechanics of how to do this have been thoroughly
>> ventilated, but its meaning has not been.
>
> Yes, I'm reading the column on *for*, which seems like written with me
> in mind. I'm one of those who've postponed learning about macros,
> etc.
You'll probably find all of Nick's columns useful/interesting then, as
well as the Tips and Tricks series of articles in the Stata Journal.
Older issues of articles in the Stata Jounral are available for free
at http://www.stata-press.com/
Neil
--
"The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does
not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body
of data." ~ John Tukey (1986), "Sunset salvo". The American
Statistician 40(1).
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