Re: It is a problem that Windows PSPPIRE/PSPP is pretty wonky

[Ben Pfaff]

I'm not sure that Windows testers would help.  Testers provide a useful
service--bug reports--but we already have Windows bug reports that we
are not able to easily solve.  Really what we need is a developer, who
can not just report bugs but actually fix them.

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 06:34:14PM +0100, Michał Dubrawski wrote:
> Alan,
> 
> I understand your point now. Sorry for misunderstanding.
> I agree with you but same as you I don't see any solution yet. If there
> were a active PSPP developer who uses Windows this situation would probably
> look different. I guess it would be hard to find such new developer to join
> the team, but maybe the Windows using tester or testers would be enough?
> I'm not a tester but I'm learning programming in Python so I understand
> some and start to understand more and more computer science concepts and I
> could learn more. I have access to Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit) and could
> compare results with PSPP version running under Linux. I guess we could
> find some more people ready to perform tests under Windows if you think
> that it could help.
> 
> kind regards,
> Michal
> 
> 
> 2014-12-31 18:05 GMT+01:00 Alan Mead <address@hidden>:
> 
> >  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
> >
> >

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