AW: st: Spss vs Stata

["Kaulisch, Marc" <kaulisch@forschungsinfo.de>]

Neil,

I might exaggerate with weeks but the table mentioned is done in SPSS within a minute or two. No need for extra software... Back in November when I searched after a solution in Stata I - as unexperienced as I am in Stata - needed one or two days to find out what Stata and user-written programs can do and what not.... 

On pivot tables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivot_table 

In another post David Airey (http://stata.com/statalist/archive/2010-08/msg00042.html) mentioned the Stata Users meeting this year. I quickly looked through the presentations from Gallup and Reif. But I do not grasp their full meaning for me as a potential user yet. May be there will be clarifiying articles in Stata Journal....


Marc

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] Im Auftrag von Neil Shephard
Gesendet: Montag, 2. August 2010 16:44
An: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Betreff: Re: st: Spss vs Stata

n Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Kaulisch, Marc <kaulisch@forschungsinfo.de> wrote:
> I am more concerned about the flexibility to generate pivot tables than about pretty tables.

I've no idea what a "pivot table" is, but if the structure below....

> My previous example in http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2009-11/msg00238.html was:
> Table
> Rowvar  colvar1 colvar2
>                1       2       1       2       3
>                n C%    n C%    n C%    n C%    n C%
> 1
> 2
> 3
> Total
>
> In order to avoid weeks of Stata programming etc. we decided to generate those tables in SPSS.
>

You could likely achieve it using Ian Watson's -tabout- (available on
SSC) or likely achieve it from first principles using
-contract-/-collapse- in conjunction with some -append-/-merge- and a small amount of programming.

Although of course I've assumed that you know how to do this sort of programming, and if not it may well take "weeks", but next time it will take you far less, and eventually it will become second nature if you use Stata regularly.

Neil
--
"... no scientific worker has a fixed level of significance at which from year to year, and in all circumstances, he rejects hypotheses; he rather gives his mind to each particular case in the light of his evidence and his ideas." - Sir Ronald A. Fisher (1956)

Email - nshephard@gmail.com
Website - http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/
Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/slackline/

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/