Re: st: Dependencies in Stata ado-packages

[Richard Williams <richardwilliams.ndu@gmail.com>]

At 08:20 PM 6/18/2012, Nick Cox wrote:

> P.S. I would not recommend copying the borrowed files to your own
> package files, even with the authors' permission. This can lead to
> more problems than it solves as and when the borrowed package is later
> modified.

I think that is debatable. You can't count on authors of other 
routines to be careful not to break your program (especially since 
they may not even know your program requires their program). They 
might decide to change the syntax, update their program to require 
Stata 13, rename the program or function, or do various other things 
that might zap your program. Therefore, if the author doesn't object, 
it may be desirable to copy parts of their code into your program, 
with proper attribution.

To deal with Nick's concern I would rename the copied section so as 
not to conflict with the package you are copying from, e.g. you don't 
want somebody calling your copied routine rather than the original.

Of course, it may also depend on how much code you have to copy. I 
would guess that a function in moremata wouldn't require that much 
copying, whereas a major estimation routine might be a very different matter.

Letting the author know that your program calls theirs might reduce 
the likelihood that they will inadvertently zap your program when 
they make changes to theirs.


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Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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