Stata 10

Stata Corp announced today that it will release version 10.0 on June 25th. There was a long list of new features and analyses, many of which have been long awaited by the Stata faithful. I don't really want to get into the new stuff in this blog, instead I want to discuss how ATS Stat Consulting deals with major new software releases.

First off, I am not sure when we will be receiving our copies of the software. The timing of this release is not optimal for our organization because our fiscal year ends on June 30th and the purchasing database shuts down several weeks before that. Furthermore, once the new fiscal year starts you can't order stuff right away because all the finance and business people are involved in preparing end of year fiscal closing reports. So, I'm not sure when we will have our hands on the software.

Basically, ATS Stat Consulting looks at new versions in terms of what web pages need to be revised, new pages that need to be created, and possibly pages that need to be removed.

Let's start with revised pages. When Stata changes how an existing command works, we need to update every page that uses the command. The biggest changes in our short history occurred when Stata did a massive overhaul of the graphics commands in Stata 8. Stata 9 also required numerous revisions, due in large part to the expanded use of prefix commands. On the surface it doesn't look like Stata 10 will require as many revisions, although there are some changes in options and features for some commands.

The tricky part here is that we have to show both the old and the new until most of our users have migrated to Stata 10.

New pages are required for new commands. There are quite a few of these. In particular the new graph editor will require pages showing how it works. We will also have to develop pages and live presentations demonstrating the best features of Stata 10.

It is not a all clear as to whether many or any pages will need to be removed. I will remove pages that are related to my -daoneway- (discriminant analysis) program since Stata 10 will provide several ways of doing disciminant analysis, but they will be replaced by pages for the new built-in procedures -discrim lda- and -candisc-.

We will be so busy in July and August with all the web stuff that I will hardly have time to work on my Stata 11 wish list.

Update: 6/8/07 -- Looks like we managed to get our purchase order in just under the wire before fiscal closing. Now its just a matter of waiting for delivery.

pbe