We are excited to announce the first version of a complete top-to-bottom
rewrite of Zelig: Everyone’s Statistical Software <http://zeligproject.org>.
Zelig is an easy-to-use, free, open source, general purpose statistics
program for estimating, interpreting, and presenting results from any
statistical method. Zelig turns the power of R, with thousands of open
source packages -- but with free ranging syntax, diverse examples, and
documentation written for different audiences -- into the same three
commands and consistent documentation for every method. Zelig uses R code
from many researchers, making it “everyone’s statistical software.” It is
the easiest way to learn new methods and use them immediately.
More information is at our new project page:
http://zeligproject.org.
**For users**, Our new architecture makes Zelig more capable, and a much
more stable platform. We now have automated code checking, so bugs should
be infrequent or fixed automatically. With our new architecture, we will be
quickly expanding the range of models included and the available ways to
both interpret, diagnose, and evaluate models. We have written functions
that will allow old Zelig code using the zelig(), setx() and sim() calls to
continue to work in the present version; however, please see the new,
simplified ways of implementing these steps in the analysis.
**For model developers and package writers**, the new architecture will
make it much more simple to incorporate your model or methods into the
Zelig framework, giving your methods more visibility and ease of use.
Zelig also now gives you much infrastructure you can use in your package
without you having to write it yourself. You will have available all the
methods for substantive interpretation (expected values, predicted values,
first differences, etc.), test diagnostics (bootstraps, jackknifes,
small-sample bias corrections) utilities (seamless integration with
multiply imputed data, matched data, weighting) and other features. You can
focus on writing new innovative models, and leave all the time consuming
pragmatic utilities to help your users to Zelig. Writing the few bridge
functions to make your package usable within Zelig will also ensure your
packages, methods, and papers get the visibility they deserve.
The present version of Zelig has more than 28 statistical models
<http://docs.zeligproject.org/en/latest/>, and it is set to grow
continuously. You can see our whole development path
<https://github.com/IQSS/Zelig/milestones>, milestones, and all the new
models we plan to add. Please feel free to make requests or add your own;
we will update this continuously.
**Mailing List* *We are transitioning our long-standing mailing list to a
Google group here
<https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/zelig-statistical-software>.
We hope you will share your feedback, ideas, concerns or issues in this
forum. Also feel free to raise issues on the GitHub issue queue
<https://github.com/IQSS/Zelig/issues> where you can see our progress on
features we are developing, and more information about milestones that will
mark each upcoming release.
Gary
--
*Gary King* - Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor - Director,
IQSS <http://iq.harvard.edu/>- Harvard University
GaryKing.org <http://garyking.org/> - King(a)Harvard.edu - @KingGary
<https://twitter.com/kinggary> - 617-500-7570 - fax 812-8581 - Assistant
<king-assist(a)iq.harvard.edu>du>: 495-9271