On the shoulders of giants, or not reinventing the wheel

Part of the art of coding is writing as little as possible to do as much as possible. In this presentation, I expand on this truism and give examples of Stata code to yield tables and graphs in which most of the real work is delegated to workhorse commands. In tabulations and listings, the better known commands sometimes seem to fall short of what you want. However, some preparation commands (such as generate, egen, collapse, or contract) followed by list, tabdisp, or tab can get you a long way. In graphics, a key principle is that graph twoway is the most general command even when you do not want rectangular axes. Variations on scatter and line plots are precisely that, variations on scatter and line plots. More challenging illustrations include commands for circular and triangular graphics, in which x and y axes are omitted with an inevitable but manageable cost in recreating scaffolding, titles, labels, and other elements. The examples range in scope from a few lines of interactive code to fully developed programs. This presentation is thus pitched at all levels of Stata users.