[Gretl-users] Contributed function packages in 2022

Dear all, happy new year to everybody! Now that the year 2022 is over, just a small piece of trivial information: There are 48 contributed function packages that have been updated during the last year - although it has to be said that in many cases the updates consisted of smaller syntax adjustments. This number doesn't include the so-called "addons": those are also function packages written in the hansl scripting language (like the contributed packages), but they are more tightly integrated into the gretl infrastructure and are automatically shipped with each gretl install. Currently there are 10 addons (see Help / look for addons), half of which have been updated during 2022. For comparison, there are 155 contributed packages in total. We would like to encourage everybody to get in the business of authoring and contributing function packages. The scripting language hansl is easy to learn, but powerful. And in general gretl offers documentation that is quite comprehensive: See Help / A Hansl Primer for an introduction to the language (in combination with the general gretl user guide, of course), and Help / Gretl Function Packaging Guide. Every package version has to go through a moderation process, where we as the moderation team make sure that (a) the package actually runs and works, and (b) has at least a minimal amount of documentation. Especially for first-time contributors, we're happy to help with problems and provide some hints. However, the package authors obviously remain responsible for what their code does and what results it produces. (Apart from the obvious fact that like any GPL'ed free / open source software, neither gretl itself nor the contributed packages come with any kind of warranties.) cheers sven