RE: st: RE: indicator variables from -by-

[Joe Canner <jcanner1@jhmi.edu>]

I don't mean to imply that StataCorp was previously uninterested in performance.  I get the impression, however, that efforts were more aimed at complex modeling procedures than at run-of-the-mill data processing and basic descriptive statistics.  I think historically people have not seen Stata as a tool for analyzing large data sets (rightfully so), but now that memory is available for those datasets, people are starting to catch on, and StataCorp is starting to focus more on this issue.

I would also say that perhaps StataCorp was not very good (i.e., overly-modest) about advertising performance improvements.  Perhaps this is because they didn't think many people would care, or perhaps the performance improvements were side effects of other changes.