/[pspp]/pspp/README
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revision 1.4 by blp, Sun Jul 31 21:42:47 2005 UTC revision 1.5 by blp, Thu Aug 4 01:59:25 2005 UTC
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1  PSPP is a program for statistical analysis of sampled data. It  PSPP is a program for statistical analysis of sampled data. It
2  interprets commands in the SPSS language and produces tabular output  interprets commands in the SPSS language and produces tabular output
3  in ASCII or PostScript format.  in ASCII, PostScript, or HTML format.
4    
5  PSPP development is ongoing. It already supports a large subset of  PSPP development is ongoing. It already supports a large subset of
6  SPSS's transformation language.  Its statistical procedure support is  SPSS's transformation language.  Its statistical procedure support is
# Line 19  Questions and comments regarding PSPP ca Line 19  Questions and comments regarding PSPP ca
19  PSPP bug reports may be sent to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org or filed in the  PSPP bug reports may be sent to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org or filed in the
20  bug-tracking system at http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=pspp  bug-tracking system at http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=pspp
21  according to your preference.  according to your preference.
22    
23    The long term goals for PSPP are ambitious.  We wish to provide the
24    following support to users:
25    
26            * All of the SPSS transformation language.  PSPP already
27              supports a large subset of it.
28    
29            * All the statistical procedures that someone is willing to
30              implement, whether they exist in SPSS or not.  Currently,
31              statistical support is limited, but growing.
32    
33            * Compatibility with SPSS syntax, including compatibility with
34              known bugs and warts, where it makes sense.  We also provide
35              an "enhanced" mode in certain cases where PSPP can output
36              better results that may surprise SPSS users.
37    
38            * Friendly textual and graphical interfaces.  PSPP does not do
39              a good job of this yet.
40    
41            * Attractive output, including graphs, in a variety of human-
42              and machine-readable formats.  PSPP currently produces
43              output in ASCII, PostScript, and HTML formats.  We will
44              enhance PSPP's output formatting in the future.
45    
46            * Good documentation.  Currently the PSPP manual describes its
47              language completely, but we would like to add information on
48              how to select statistical procedures and interpret their
49              results.
50    
51            * Efficient support for very large data sets.  For procedures
52              where it is practical, we wish to efficiently support data
53              sets many times larger than physical memory.  The framework
54              for this feature is already in place, but it has not been
55              tuned or extensively tested.
56    
57    Over the long term, we also wish to provide support to developers who
58    wish to extend PSPP with new statistical procedures, by supplying the
59    following:
60    
61            * Easy-to-use support for parsing language syntax.  Currently,
62              parsing is done by writing "recursive descent" code by hand,
63              with some support for automated parsing of the most common
64              constructs.  We wish to improve the situation by supplying a
65              more complete and flexible parser generator.
66    
67            * Easy-to-use support for producing attractive output.
68              Currently, output is done by writing code to explicitly fill
69              in table cells with data.  We should be able to supply a
70              more convenient interface that also allows for providing
71              machine-readable output.
72    
73            * Eventually, a plug-in interface for procedures.  Over the
74              short term, the interface between the PSPP core and
75              statistical procedures is evolving quickly enough that a
76              plug-in model does not make sense.  Over the long term, it
77              may make sense to introduce plug-ins.

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