Re: [Gretl-users] Stata collapse command

I cannot forebear to respond to Allin's comment. Stata's collapse command - and the expand command (which replicates observations) - is incredibly useful if you doing any large amount of data processing involving the manipulation of cross-section or panel datasets with mixed periodicity or very different sources of data. Consider adding regional statistics to state data. I am using Stata for a large study based on cross-country panel data from a whole variety of sources. My Stata programs probably have 50 or more uses of collapse in one context or another. It is much more cumbersome to write such code using matrix commands, especially when datasets get to the limits of storage capacity. I suspect that the key is "horses for courses". No program can do everything equally well. I don't think that Gretl can or should attempt to be a Swiss penknife for data manipulation or for analysing very large datasets. Stata is expensive unless you can use it via an academic site license, but most kinds of data manipulation can be managed in Excel (or Gnumeric if you want to stick with open source software). It is worth noting that collapse (like many Stata commands) is implemented via an ado-file. My experience is that writing ado-files is a horrible process because of the cumbersome way of dealing with variables - the reasons for which I understand but still don't like. I think the real lesson for Gretl is to promote the use and sharing of script functions with a reasonable balance between generality and ease of use. Gordon Hughes