Re: release plans

[Jason Stover]

I think "we" (that means either Ben or John) should add the ability to
read SAS data sets to PSPP. I have no idea how hard this would be, or
how long it would take. I can't remember if someone already mentioned
it on the list, but a quick search of the archive didn't show
anything.

Anyway, such functionality would expand the number of users 
by a lot. SAS Inc. has far more customers than its competitor in
Chicago, and neither program can read the other's data sets
(I think). A statistician is typically handed several data sets,
in many formats, and spends quite a bit of time merging them and
checking them all. One of the most common data formats is that of
SAS, so having the ability to read that format would make PSPP
useful to a lot more people. Any program that can read many data
formats will be very desirable among statisticians, even if its
statistical abilities are limited.

Another way to reach a lot more users is to make PSPP able to
read SAS and SPSS syntax. I know that would be difficult, but
I believe it would make PSPP useful to many more people. I think
SAS syntax used to compile into C, it may still do so. It's syntax
looks like C syntax, so reading it may not be that difficult.

I know you can't implement both of these ideas before the next
release, or maybe ever, but they are goals worth considering if they
aren't impossibly difficult.

And I'm still debugging the time series module.

-Jason

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 09:28:35AM -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> I think that we should starting planning a new release,
> presumably 0.5.0, for sometime in January or February.  I've
> tagged all the bugs with my opinion on whether they're pre-0.5.0
> or post-0.5.0 material.  
> 
> What else do we want to see in 0.5.0?  In my opinion the bug
> system is actually a pretty good way to manage this kind of
> thing, so you might consider filing a wishlist bug and assigning
> it to yourself for anything you'd want to make the release.
> 
> Opinions?
> 
> As for 0.6.0: I want to rewrite the output system for that
> release.  I desperately need to get my ideas for that to the
> mailing list, but not this morning.
> 
> -- 
> Ben Pfaff 
> email: address@hidden
> web: http://benpfaff.org
> 
> 
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