All this rings true. Thanks for laying it out so clearly. I think that the only real solution is for a Windows developer to come forward to join the PSPP development team. I don't know where to find one, though. I don't use Windows myself, and few of my coworkers use it (they are almost exclusively Mac or GNU/Linux users). Honestly I don't know where all the Windows users are; if it's true that 90% of desktop users use Windows, it's not over here in my part of Silicon Valley.
On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 11:05:59AM -0600, Alan Mead wrote: > Michal, > > You are preaching to the choir; one of the ways PSPP improves is through > reports about the wonky bits. > > However I had a point which I didn't make explicitly that bears > explication: I'm not at all sure that PSPP *FOR WINDOWS* is under active > development. One of the ways (probably the main way) that free software > gets better is when developers are motivated to solve their own > problems. Recently Ben added support for new encrypted SAV files and > even more recently old SPSS+ SAV formats. He did that because he enjoys > that kind of work. That's how free software works and why it's often > better than commercial software. > > And here's the point: I don't think that Ben or John ever use Windows, > so any annoyances specific to the Windows version (like not being able > to paste properly) are invisible to them and will never be fixed. > Windows is treated like a distribution package and the Windows-specific > issues are a problem for a Windows package manager to solve. But there > is a gap there. I am grateful for (or I admire and applaud) Harry's > work to provide a Windows version, but he cross-compiles it on (I think) > OpenSUSE. I don't know that there is any developer of PSPP who > regularly uses PSPP on Windows and who is motivated to solve these > annoyances in the Windows version. > > And I think that's a problem because, despite Sinofsky's best efforts to > drive everyone away, Windows still has a desktop market share around > ~90% and I'd expect that means ~90% of new PSPP users are trying to use > PSPP's second-class implementation, the Windows version. My specific > motivation for posting about the wonky bits was as a bug report; a > Windows user was trying to use PSPP on Windows to make boxplots and I > had pasted exact steps but even if that user uses the right steps they > will encounter the paste problem and the boxplot they get will > (presumably) be flawed in the ways I described. A couple weeks ago, I > had a new PSPP user email me off list because she was running Windows 8 > and she reported that PSPP won't run at all on her computer. I wouldn't > be surprised to find out that she was the first to try PSPP on Windows 8 > (I know I don't have a Windows 8 machine to try). Another problem I've > encountered is that it's easy to create multiple instances of PSPP(IRE) > on Windows (just double-click on two or more different SAV files in > Windows Explorer). So, you can easily have a situation where you have a > dataset open in one window and syntax in another but, because the > windows are attached to independent instances of PSPP, the syntax cannot > access that data. To solve this, one must open a new syntax window from > the window containing target the dataset and paste your syntax into that > window (or save the syntax from one window to a file and open it in the > other window). For an SPSS user, this is extremely confusing because in > SPSS any syntax window can activate any dataset; it's probably fairly > confusing to people who've never used SPSS. But the overall issue I'm > addressing is that I think it's a problem for PSPP that the Windows > version is so wonky. > > So, as you say, this is free software and there is no solution per se, > but I think this is an appropriate forum for raising this issue. > > -Alan > > > On 12/31/2014 9:09 AM, Michał Dubrawski wrote: > > Dear Alan, > > > > Although what you are saying are things that could be improved in PSPP > > you should remember that PSPP is still under development - it is not > > version 1.0. > > > -- > > Alan D. Mead, Ph.D. > President, Talent Algorithms Inc. > > science + technology = better workers > > +815.588.3846 (Office) > +267.334.4143 (Mobile) > > http://www.alanmead.org > > Announcing the Journal of Computerized Adaptive Testing (JCAT), a > peer-reviewed electronic journal designed to advance the science and > practice of computerized adaptive testing: http://www.iacat.org/jcat > > _______________________________________________ > Pspp-users mailing list > Pspp-users@gnu.org > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-users _______________________________________________ Pspp-users mailing list Pspp-users@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-users
