gretl: two or three things you could do!
by Allin Cottrell
Hello all,
I know, everyone in the academic world is busy: there are classes
to teach, papers to be written, papers to be refereed, conferences
to attend, and so on.
I'm subject to all these pressures myself, and I spend just about
all of my "spare time" coding gretl. The result is that I'm not
able to devote time to various things that, I think, would help us
all ("us" being people who think gretl is of value). Here are
three things that I think would be helpful, one of which has
already been done, and two of which remain to be done. If you
feel you could contribute in any of these ways, please do!
1) Writing articles, or putting up websites, that explicate gretl
for people who haven't heard of it. This has been done. For
example, Tadeusz Kufel has a website that brings gretl to a Polish
constituency; Talha Yalta, Ryan J. Smith and J. Wilson Mixon Jr.
have published papers that assess gretl; and Lee Adkins has an
excellent online guide to econometrics using gretl.
2) A Free/Open-Source Software award for gretl: Why haven't we won
a prize yet? The obvious answer is that gretl is a relatively
specialized piece of software; it's not something that _most_
desktop users will have a need for, or _most_ sysadmins.
But if someone had a a little spare time for research: Who awards
such things and how are the nominations assessed? I'm not the one
to say this, but it seems to me that -- leaving aside the famous
"LAMP stack" of Linux (kernel), Apache (web server), MySQL
(database) and PHP (web scripting language) -- gretl is one of the
best conceived and most functional open-source projects in
existence. Of course, this is not just thanks to me and Jack
Lucchetti -- it's also due to the careful bug reports and detailed
suggestions submitted by many of you over the years.
So, what about it? A little recognition in the open-source
community at large would be morale-booster for everyone working on
gretl.
3) A gretl conference? We have people with more than a casual
interest in gretl in at least half-a-dozen (6) countries. Is
there anyone who might be interested in organizing a conference to
bring us all together? My thought is that such an event would not
simply bring _us_ together, but might also form a focal point that
would bring in other _potentially_ interested people. For
example, graduate students with computing expertise! The
conference agenda could be broader than gretl: it could be, for
example, something like "open-source approaches in statistical
computing".
Any takers?
Allin.
--
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University, NC
15 years, 5 months
Bug: Plot labels
by Talha Yalta
Allin Hi:
When I use Turkish characters such as üğişçö in the title and labels
of a plot, these charcters are replaced by weird looking charcters
only when I export the graph as eps. No problem in exporting png
files. This happens in both Windows and GNU/Linux versions of gretl.
Cheers,
Talha
--
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
15 years, 5 months
Re: Re: [Gretl-users] Command line access to critical values
by andreas.rosenblad＠ltv.se
cottrell(a)wfu.edu @ INTERNET skrev 2007-09-27 04:32:51 :
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2007, andreas.rosenblad(a)ltv.se wrote:
>
> > I am writing a function where I need to calculate the critical >
> values for an F distribution and store it as a scalar variable.
> > > For example, in R I would have written a = qf(1-alpha,df1,df2),
> > but what should I write in gretl?
>
> a = critical(F, df1, df2, alpha)
>
> The documentation is probably lagging on this point, sorry.
Yes, the command "critical()" is not mentioned in Help > Command reference
> Plain text, nor in the Gretl Command Reference or the Gretl User's Guide.
Could you please add this command to the Plain text help files and the
Gretl Command Reference? Also, a Help button in the Tools > Statistical
tables dialog box would be helpful.
Andreas
15 years, 6 months
gmm usage
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
now that I have my first gmm estimates produced by gretl, I would like
to know what else is possible -- I already found out that "restrict"
apparently is _im_possible. What about saving the estimated coefficients
or covariance matrix for further (scripting) use? (I have read the gmm
chapter but couldn't find anything.)
thanks,
sven
15 years, 6 months
(no subject)
by andreas.rosenblad＠ltv.se
I am writing a function where I need to calculate the critical values for
an F distribution and store it as a scalar variable.
>From the Tools > Statistical tables I get an output with a critical value,
but I have not found how to do this using the command line interface, so I
don't know how to write it into the function.
Does anybody know how to do this using the CLI?
For example, in R I would have written a = qf(1-alpha,df1,df2), but what
should I write in gretl?
Andreas
15 years, 6 months
Gujarati data file
by Talha Yalta
I tried but couldn't download the gujarati data files from the
http://gretl.sourceforge.net/gujarati/index.html page.
I was however able to download the windows exe version of the file from
http://gretl.sourceforge.net/win32/
The first link uses ftp while the second uses http. I am not sure if
the problem is due to my computer settings. Normally I have no problem
downloading things.
Cheers,
Talha
--
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
15 years, 6 months
(no subject)
by ab.news
Allin Cottrell a écrit :
> On Wed, 19 Sep 2007, ab.news wrote:
>
>> One more stuff! While adding other curves in the distribution
>> graph, some existing curves seem to lose their smoothness.
>
> Some of the plots should not be smooth. ...
> Are you seeing non-smooth plots that really should be smooth?
Oh, you're right! But the Normal, the Chi2 and the F distribution should be smooth, shouldn't they?
At a glance, the T distribution looks quite well.
artur
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15 years, 6 months
(no subject)
by ab.news
Allin Cottrell a écrit :
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2007, ab.news wrote:
>
>> Allin Cottrell a écrit :
>>> Sorry, you'll have to explain that a bit more.
>>>
>> Yes, you're right. And your tests too! But to reproduce the bug
>> you need to display the 2 windows in continuity....
> OK, I think I understand: it's as if the error condition from the
> first window is "stuck in place"?
Exactly !!
> if you ask for one distribution graph ...
> but if you try to add another curve to the existing plot you get a
> gnuplot error. This is fixed in CVS.
Yes that's true! One more stuff! While adding other curves in the distribution graph, some existing curves seem to lose their smoothness.
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15 years, 6 months
decimal separator bug
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
a nasty because potentially unnoticed bug just bit me with gretl 1.6.5
on a German windows:
Gretl was set to use the German decimal separator (comma) and so I typed
"v2 = v1 / 98,3" in the define-new-variable dialog.
However, gretl effectively seems to have calculated v1/98 without the
fractional part. For example, a value of 98,3 in v1 didn't come out as
1, but as 1,00306.
I know that in scripts one must use the decimal point, but in dialog
windows in a localized setting this is bad behavior IMHO.
Haven't tried with a newer snapshot, hope the fix makes it into 1.6.6.
thanks,
sven
15 years, 6 months
Ang. Re: [Gretl-users] decimal separator bug
by andreas.rosenblad＠ltv.se
cottrell(a)wfu.edu @ INTERNET skrev 2007-09-19 15:28:55 :
> Here are three options:
>
> 1) Totally scrap the locale separator: all input and output uses the
> decimal point, with no option. [With the exception of reading and
> writing delimited text data files.]
I vote for this option.
Andreas
15 years, 6 months
