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[Pspp-cvs] Changes to pspp/README
From: |
John Darrington |
Subject: |
[Pspp-cvs] Changes to pspp/README |
Date: |
Wed, 02 Nov 2005 23:52:28 -0500 |
Index: pspp/README
diff -u pspp/README:1.4 pspp/README:1.5
--- pspp/README:1.4 Sun Jul 31 21:42:47 2005
+++ pspp/README Thu Aug 4 01:59:25 2005
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
PSPP is a program for statistical analysis of sampled data. It
interprets commands in the SPSS language and produces tabular output
-in ASCII or PostScript format.
+in ASCII, PostScript, or HTML format.
PSPP development is ongoing. It already supports a large subset of
SPSS's transformation language. Its statistical procedure support is
@@ -19,3 +19,59 @@
PSPP bug reports may be sent to address@hidden or filed in the
bug-tracking system at http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=pspp
according to your preference.
+
+The long term goals for PSPP are ambitious. We wish to provide the
+following support to users:
+
+ * All of the SPSS transformation language. PSPP already
+ supports a large subset of it.
+
+ * All the statistical procedures that someone is willing to
+ implement, whether they exist in SPSS or not. Currently,
+ statistical support is limited, but growing.
+
+ * Compatibility with SPSS syntax, including compatibility with
+ known bugs and warts, where it makes sense. We also provide
+ an "enhanced" mode in certain cases where PSPP can output
+ better results that may surprise SPSS users.
+
+ * Friendly textual and graphical interfaces. PSPP does not do
+ a good job of this yet.
+
+ * Attractive output, including graphs, in a variety of human-
+ and machine-readable formats. PSPP currently produces
+ output in ASCII, PostScript, and HTML formats. We will
+ enhance PSPP's output formatting in the future.
+
+ * Good documentation. Currently the PSPP manual describes its
+ language completely, but we would like to add information on
+ how to select statistical procedures and interpret their
+ results.
+
+ * Efficient support for very large data sets. For procedures
+ where it is practical, we wish to efficiently support data
+ sets many times larger than physical memory. The framework
+ for this feature is already in place, but it has not been
+ tuned or extensively tested.
+
+Over the long term, we also wish to provide support to developers who
+wish to extend PSPP with new statistical procedures, by supplying the
+following:
+
+ * Easy-to-use support for parsing language syntax. Currently,
+ parsing is done by writing "recursive descent" code by hand,
+ with some support for automated parsing of the most common
+ constructs. We wish to improve the situation by supplying a
+ more complete and flexible parser generator.
+
+ * Easy-to-use support for producing attractive output.
+ Currently, output is done by writing code to explicitly fill
+ in table cells with data. We should be able to supply a
+ more convenient interface that also allows for providing
+ machine-readable output.
+
+ * Eventually, a plug-in interface for procedures. Over the
+ short term, the interface between the PSPP core and
+ statistical procedures is evolving quickly enough that a
+ plug-in model does not make sense. Over the long term, it
+ may make sense to introduce plug-ins.