Version 17.0 in the mail....should I bother?

[David Futrell]

Fellow Listers:

I just received notification today that SPSS is shipping me Version 17.0.

Is it worth installing? After a few days with 16.0, I reinstalled version 15.0 and never looked back. Is version 17.0 any better / faster / less buggy?

Thanks,

David Futrell
Eli Lilly and Company

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[Lemon, John S.]

David et al.



I can only speak from experience of the beta but 17 seems to be a great improvement over 16 which I felt was an improvement over 15 in that although 16 was slower the 'drag and drop' features and resizing of dialogs made it much more user friendly. Although some people reported 16 as being very 'buggy'  in the list I haven't experienced that. Within my University when people reported 'bugs' it was often because they hadn't applied the fixes / patches or hadn't bothered to read any of the information in the changes to 16. The number of times I had to explain about the different formats in output files between 15 & 16 went beyond belief and then people would jump to the conclusion that data files were incompatible between 15 & 16 - in BOTH directions.



Any way we're moving on, 17 has been released and if you look at the new features on the SPSS site you will see that there are improvements. The developers have addressed the speed issues and the one thing I really want to use as soon as possible is the 'intelligent' syntax editor. I really missed that when the beta expired. By the way I have beta tested SPSS for a number of years and this has been the most bug free. My one moan is the fact that SPSS seems to cross the Atlantic on a slow boat, every time there is a new release I see people in the list commenting, good and bad, on the new features and we just sit and wait !!!



Try 17 - I will certainly install and use it and if I do find bugs I will report them so that SPSS has a chance to fix them.

Best Wishes

John S. Lemon
Student Liaison Officer
Directorate of Information Technology<http://www.abdn.ac.uk/dit/> (DIT) - University of Aberdeen
Edward Wright Building<http://www.abdn.ac.uk/central/vcampus/kings/edward.shtml>: Room G51
Tel:  [phone]
Fax: [phone]



-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David Futrell
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:30 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Version 17.0 in the mail....should I bother?



Fellow Listers:



I just received notification today that SPSS is shipping me Version 17.0.



Is it worth installing? After a few days with 16.0, I reinstalled version 15.0 and never looked back. Is version 17.0 any better / faster / less buggy?



Thanks,



David Futrell

Eli Lilly and Company



=====================

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[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the

command. To leave the list, send the command

SIGNOFF SPSSX-L

For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command

INFO REFCARD


The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.

====================To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
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[Bibel, Daniel (POL)]

Here's my issue with 16.  We purchased several upgrades from v.13  --
but did not purchase maintenance.  Once installed we found that it would
not recognize several disks on our system.  We contacted support but
were told that we couldn't get any help since we hadn't purchased
maintenance.  We then contacted our spss sales rep who said we should
recontact spss support and insist on service, purchase maintenance, or
just wait to buy v.17.

It seems to me that v.16 is in fact a buggy product, notwithstanding
John's experience with it.  Being forced to buy a new version in order
to fix the problems that a software company released in a previous
version shows disrespect to the users.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lemon, John S. [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 3:06 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Version 17.0 in the mail....should I bother?

David et al.



I can only speak from experience of the beta but 17 seems to be a great
improvement over 16 which I felt was an improvement over 15 in that
although 16 was slower the 'drag and drop' features and resizing of
dialogs made it much more user friendly. Although some people reported
16 as being very 'buggy'  in the list I haven't experienced that. Within
my University when people reported 'bugs' it was often because they
hadn't applied the fixes / patches or hadn't bothered to read any of the
information in the changes to 16. The number of times I had to explain
about the different formats in output files between 15 & 16 went beyond
belief and then people would jump to the conclusion that data files were
incompatible between 15 & 16 - in BOTH directions.



Any way we're moving on, 17 has been released and if you look at the new
features on the SPSS site you will see that there are improvements. The
developers have addressed the speed issues and the one thing I really
want to use as soon as possible is the 'intelligent' syntax editor. I
really missed that when the beta expired. By the way I have beta tested
SPSS for a number of years and this has been the most bug free. My one
moan is the fact that SPSS seems to cross the Atlantic on a slow boat,
every time there is a new release I see people in the list commenting,
good and bad, on the new features and we just sit and wait !!!



Try 17 - I will certainly install and use it and if I do find bugs I
will report them so that SPSS has a chance to fix them.

Best Wishes

John S. Lemon
Student Liaison Officer
Directorate of Information Technology
<http://www.abdn.ac.uk/dit/> (DIT) - University of Aberdeen
Edward Wright Building
<http://www.abdn.ac.uk/central/vcampus/kings/edward.shtml>: Room G51
Tel:  [phone]
Fax: [phone]



-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
David Futrell
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:30 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Version 17.0 in the mail....should I bother?



Fellow Listers:



I just received notification today that SPSS is shipping me Version
17.0.



Is it worth installing? After a few days with 16.0, I reinstalled
version 15.0 and never looked back. Is version 17.0 any better / faster
/ less buggy?



Thanks,



David Futrell

Eli Lilly and Company



=====================

To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to

[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the

command. To leave the list, send the command

SIGNOFF SPSSX-L

For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command

INFO REFCARD


The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No
SC013683.


he University of AbTo manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a
message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

=====================
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[Michael Kruger]

I helped beta test 17.0 and I must admit that it was much improved over
16.0. It ran faster and was less buggy. That being said, it wasn't as
fast as 15.0, is designed for VISTA, so the many who still use Windows
XP will see a degradation in speed, especially in
the printing of output. It had some nice new features that I can't say I
got around to using many of them. I'll probably get 17.0 but if it runs
as slow as I think it will, I think users should insist on keeping 15.0
alive and functioning. Not everyone gets new machines each year. I teach
a stats course to the research fellows in our department and the lab we
use to teach SPSS has all old Dell Pentium 3's....


M. Kruger

=====================
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[Weeks, Kyle]

John, I just comfirmed with SPSS UK, the v17 renewal shipments should begin shipping this week.
 
Regards.
 

Kyle Weeks, Ph.D.
Director of Product Strategy, SPSS Statistics

SPSS Inc.

Phone: [phone] / Fax: [phone]

[hidden email]

www.spss.com
SPSS Inc. helps organizations turn data into insight through predictive analytics.

 


________________________________

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion on behalf of Lemon, John S.
Sent: Thu 10/9/2008 2:05 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Version 17.0 in the mail....should I bother?



David et al.



I can only speak from experience of the beta but 17 seems to be a great improvement over 16 which I felt was an improvement over 15 in that although 16 was slower the 'drag and drop' features and resizing of dialogs made it much more user friendly. Although some people reported 16 as being very 'buggy'  in the list I haven't experienced that. Within my University when people reported 'bugs' it was often because they hadn't applied the fixes / patches or hadn't bothered to read any of the information in the changes to 16. The number of times I had to explain about the different formats in output files between 15 & 16 went beyond belief and then people would jump to the conclusion that data files were incompatible between 15 & 16 - in BOTH directions.



Any way we're moving on, 17 has been released and if you look at the new features on the SPSS site you will see that there are improvements. The developers have addressed the speed issues and the one thing I really want to use as soon as possible is the 'intelligent' syntax editor. I really missed that when the beta expired. By the way I have beta tested SPSS for a number of years and this has been the most bug free. My one moan is the fact that SPSS seems to cross the Atlantic on a slow boat, every time there is a new release I see people in the list commenting, good and bad, on the new features and we just sit and wait !!!



Try 17 - I will certainly install and use it and if I do find bugs I will report them so that SPSS has a chance to fix them.

Best Wishes

John S. Lemon
Student Liaison Officer
Directorate of Information Technology<http://www.abdn.ac.uk/dit/> (DIT) - University of Aberdeen
Edward Wright Building<http://www.abdn.ac.uk/central/vcampus/kings/edward.shtml>: Room G51
Tel:  [phone]
Fax: [phone]



-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David Futrell
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:30 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Version 17.0 in the mail....should I bother?



Fellow Listers:



I just received notification today that SPSS is shipping me Version 17.0.



Is it worth installing? After a few days with 16.0, I reinstalled version 15.0 and never looked back. Is version 17.0 any better / faster / less buggy?



Thanks,



David Futrell

Eli Lilly and Company



=====================

To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to

[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the

command. To leave the list, send the command

SIGNOFF SPSSX-L

For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command

INFO REFCARD


The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.

=======
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

====================To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD