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Re: st: wrong datetime results with clock() -- sometimes


From   Rebecca Pope <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: st: wrong datetime results with clock() -- sometimes
Date   Sat, 6 Jul 2013 10:20:22 -0500

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Sergiy Radyakin <[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
> defaulting to double in 'generate' makes much more sense to me than to
> float.

Stata is happy to accommodate this wish: -set type double, permanently-.

 [...] No memory savings can now compensate for inconvenience of
> having to take care about it, and if Stata ever wants to win the
> Excel-level users, the explicit notation of numerical storage type
> should be completely abandoned.

Storage types for Excel don't have to be specified, but there are
plenty of other things to keep up with. I don't think remembering to
type one extra word after -gen- (or change the type in the drop down
menu) is going to tax the skills of an "Excel-level user" nor should
we imply that it will. It is just a matter of developing a new habit.
The number of "can I do this better?" questions on Statalist is a
testament to the willingness of people to learn to use Stata
correctly. Part of that is learning to, as Nick said, "take
responsibility for what you say" when issuing commands.

My original question was the result of carelessness and being
generally unaccustomed to having to convert my own dates (working in a
predominantly SAS shop now & on a computer without Stat\Transfer).
I've been using Stata for years and I'm constantly amazed by the
little things I've managed to not internalize compared to the ones I
have. It's down to the things I do every day, I suppose.

Rebecca
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