Re: st: Updates to SSC

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Several valuable details here, but just to note that

1. Many of us use long out-of-date Windows systems for a variety of
reasons, many very good.

2. Kit could give a long, long list of people writing puzzled emails
to him because they don't understand enough to use their browsers to
install programs in the right place. The issue is not whether or not
it's "safe"; the issue is that the process is too complicated for many
users to (want to) grapple with (manifestly not yourself).

3. It's an excellent point that by choice or necessity people often
don't use Stata to first access information about SSC packages; but I
submit that it's an equally excellent point that the vast majority of
users are better served by learning to use -ssc-. -ssc- understands
SSC and Stata; your browser is stupid about both and requires you to
make up the difference. So I think that Stata makes it as easy as
possible for most people (modulo firewalls, which are beyond Stata's
control, naturally) to go

ssc inst foo

I'm quietly (*) proud that Kit and I wrote the first version of the
-ssc- command as a convenience tool to help people access user-written
stuff on SSC.

(*) With this email, not so "quietly".

Nick
njcoxstata@gmail.com


On 5 July 2013 17:00, Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:30 AM, Christopher Baum <kit.baum@bc.edu> wrote:
>> <>
>> Per a recent interchange between Sergiy and Nick Cox, I did manage to update some packages recently on SSC. When a package is added (e.g., labellacking) it becomes immediately available via the ssc describe and install commands. It also shows up on ssc new. But the links from that command do not work until the next day, as it requires an overnight update by IDEAS in St Louis. Likewise changes do not take immediate effect for Stata's own findit or search commands--they seem to require an overnight refresh. A strong reminder: do not install packages from a web browser!! A couple of recent emails complained of problems, and in both cases it was due to not using ssc install.
>
> Dear Kit, thank you very much for explaining the internals of how it
> is organized. Note, that while nobody can "install packages from a web
> browser" (simply because browsers know nothing about Stata) the use of
> the RePEc SSC page remains a legitimate way of checking the package
> contents (source) BEFORE actually installing the package or WITHOUT
> actually installing the package, or from a system that does not have a
> Stata installed (e.g. smartphone). It is also the only way to acquire
> individual package files to be transferred to another system not
> connected to internet (without creating a standalone package
> installer, such as the one quoted here (see slide #19):
> www.stata.com/meeting/dcconf09/dc09_lokshin.ppt
>
> In any case the RePEc system should not present a broken link. And if
> that is unavoidable, the announcer can imho delay the announcement by
> 24 hours to give a chance to all automated systems to propagate the
> updates. And the message that "Windows users should not attempt to
> download these files with a web browser." is something that is
> unjustly strict and strictly not correct. Windows users are totally
> safe downloading all those files with their web browser. They should
> not expect that the file will magically install itself into Stata, but
> that is also 100% true for osx and linux users. The reason was
> probably because the *.hlp files were associated with the Windows Help
> Viewer, and since these files are not in the proper Windows Help
> format, they were reported as corrupt. At some point I wrote a program
> which treated the *.hlp files correctly regardless of whether they
> were Stata's help files or Windows's help files, but it is no longer
> required: This issue is long gone since:
>
> 1) Windows is no longer using *.hlp files for help and it is not even
> possible to open *.hlp files in Vista and later OSs by default as
> described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607
>
> and
>
> 2) Stata is currently using the *.sthlp extension, and these files
> will simply open as any text files in your browser. However, programs
> declared as compatible with Stata 9 or earlier (such as e.g.
> -labellacking-, -ztnbp-) must use the *.hlp file extension (otherwise
> the help file will not be available in those Statas).
> More elaborate discussion of this took place in 2007 during the
> release of Stata 10 and the switch to the new extension:
> http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2007-06/msg00281.html   In any
> case file associations can be done in any modern system, so the
> statement that "Windows users should not attempt to download these
> files with a web browser." is just as applicable to 'Snow Leopard' and
> 'Ubuntu' users.
>
> Best, Sergiy
>
>
>>
>> There are a couple of issues with recent updates yet to be resolved, but my Internet connection is not adequate for that at the moment. I will hope to deal with those and a number of other updates soon, but I will not be back in Boston until 13 July.
>>
>> Kit
>>
>> via iOS6
>> *
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>
> *
> *   For searches and help try:
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> *   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/resources/statalist-faq/
> *   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/

*
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