Re: st: Documentation of when commands and features were introduced

[Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com>]

Dear Clyde,

I have mentioned the same concern to the StataCorp's developers during
the Conference in New Orleans last week. I have also pointed that this
is a standard feature of the documentation in some other environments,
e.g. dotNet. For example for NamedPipeClientStream class Microsoft
would provide the following compatibility reference:

        Version Information .NET Framework Supported in: 4.5, 4, 3.5

as per http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.pipes.namedpipeclientstream.aspx

It seems unlikely we will get this kind of reference anytime soon,
however at least two ways I can suggest from my own experience:

1.  There is a web help system available on Stata's web site, which
supports back-in-time (so you can go back to e.g. Stata 11 help by
adding a suffix "11"):

Compare e.g.:
http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?dta
http://www.stata.com/help11.cgi?dta

2. You can have multiple copies of Stata installed on your machine and
test your program on an older Stata before passing it to your
colleagues. Your most recent license should cover all older versions
of the same flavor (small, IC, SE, MP) as long as they are used on the
same machine (e.g. you can't have a win-XP and win-7 machines with
Stata-9 and Stata-13 running on the same license, but you can have a
win-7 machine with Stata-9 and Stata-13 installed on the same
license). When in doubt, consult StataCorp for details. In general
using the most recent version is recommended for your research,
however using older versions is sometimes required for development and
testing. E.g. there is no way Stata-12 can create a compiled Mata code
that Stata-9 would be able to run, regardless of the version statement
and other config settings. The only way is to run the actual Stata-9
and compile your Mata code there. The obtained library code can then
be executed by any later version of Stata.

3. Finally, don't throw away those manuals if you have them. They are
perfect for these purposes.

Best, Sergiy

On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 5:12 PM, Clyde Schechter
<clyde.schechter@gmail.com> wrote:
> I work with a number of colleagues who are still using earlier
> versions of Stata (some back as far as 9.2), but who are not in a
> position to upgrade.
>
> An increasingly frequent scenario is that they will e-mail me a
> question about how to do something, and I'll e-mail them back a
> snippet of code.  Then they e-mail back that my code doesn't work
> because some command is not recognized, or because some feature (e.g.
> using /// to break a command over more than one line, or the use of
> factor variables, or an -egen- function) is not supported in their
> version.
>
> As the gap between my version and theirs has grown, this problem
> arises more and more often.  I try to remember what was introduced
> when, but at this point, there is too much for me to keep in my head.
> And due to considerations of storage space, I have not saved my old
> manuals.
>
> Does anyone know of any resource that lists commands and features and
> at what version they were introduced?  It would be a huge help.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Clyde Schechter
> Dept. of Family & Social Medicine
> Albert Einstein College of Medicine
> Bronx, NY, USA
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