SPSS SPV quirk

[Alan Mead]

Ben,

When we use modern versions of SPSS, I often scroll down to elements of
the SPV file and that element is replaced by a message like  "Please
wait - computing" and then after a few seconds, the content replaces
this message.  Is this something that you've encountered and
successfully understood?  If so, what's SPSS doing?  Is it really
re-computing the element? That would imply that it saved all the data
into the SPV file, which seems like an odd and potentially sensitive
issue. I cannot say what elements do this, but I can recall seeing it
occur for graphs.

I've also heard, but cannot confirm first-hand, that when there are
added modules in SPSS and those modules have been used to create
oiutput, that the viewer of the SPV file must also have those modules or
else the computing message never goes away (because the viewer doesn't
have the correct code to replicate the analysis).  This also seems like
extraordinarily bad thinking (or at least has extraordinarily bad
outcomes for users).  But, again, I cannot say I've seen this first-hand
nor do I know if that applies to all modules.

-Alan


On 11/8/2015 1:25 AM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 08, 2015 at 01:36:01AM +0000, Charles Johnson wrote:
>>> Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2015 17:03:01 -0800
>>> From: address@hidden
>>> To: address@hidden
>>> CC: address@hidden; address@hidden; address@hidden; address@hidden; 
>>> address@hidden; address@hidden; address@hidden
>>> Subject: Re: CTABLES
>>>
>>> I've done a lot of the work needed to figure out the format of SPV
>>> files. I'm working on publishing a format specification. Then I'll
>>> work on implementing a reader for it.
>> That is great news. If you need more files of type SPV/SPO could ask
>> another topic of discussion.
> At some point I'll need some more to answer a few lingering questions,
> but I can already extract all of the important content.

-- 

Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.
President, Talent Algorithms Inc.

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