Thanks Torsten. Here are some comments. I hope others will respond as well. Jamie
On Jan 4, 2017, at 07:17, EpiData development and support epidata-list@lists.umanitoba.ca wrote:
A. Which sign should be used (= vs :=, <> vs !=, == vs =, etc)
My preference for logical comparisons: ==, <> or !=
An aspect of this is which signs are easy to make on keyboards in all countries, e.g. ! is easy on the danish keyboard
B: How should we define select - as in current Analysis v2, where an additional select is incremental adding to a previous select. Or as in current prototype, where a given select only works for one command at a time or on a begin ... end; block
I prefer the begin … end blocks.
I would like to see:
select <boolean> begin <statements>; end; else begin <statements>; end;
This would implement if-then-else functionality at the record level, leaving if-then-else for use with globals; by the way, currently if-then will compare the first record if a variable name is used.
C: How should we define options. E.g as in Analysis v2 with a symbol (which cannot be "/"), but it could also as (notice the "," and no symbol for each option): /command/ /variable [variable ... ]/ , /option/ [ := </expression/> ] /options/ […]
I like the following: select group==1 means age, by=sex t vl
And for testing we would like your feedback:
- Syntax: Is the current syntax reasonably easy to understand and use.
It seems that programs require ; at the end of a line. This will need to be emphasized (where to use ; and where not). The examples show this pretty well.