Date:         Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:52:39 -0400
Reply-To:     Richard Ristow <wrristow@mindspring.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Richard Ristow <wrristow@mindspring.com>
Subject:      Re: 2nd Attempt: Grouping Zip Codes
Comments: To: Deepak Jethwani <deepak.jethwani@gmail.com>
Comments: cc: Spousta Jan <JSpousta@CSAS.CZ>
In-Reply-To:  <E08B564BAA29FE4F8EC8BAF42FE0A01F126715@bubsex02.cen.csin.c z>
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At 09:40 AM 9/21/2005, Spousta Jan wrote:

>Only a few thoughts:
<<remarks on the inherent difficulty of the problem>>

>3) The question is then, whether SPSS is just the best tool to create
>such algorithm - another possibility is to use a general programming
>language. It can be better suited to go through the data in logically
>complicated ways. (SPSS and similar tools use the top-to-bottom way
>automatically - they just read/write all cases in one step...)

For an appropriate tool, I'd consider a relational DBMS that supports
SQL. It has syntax and semantics for many-to-many merges, and this
problem tends to need them. What do you think, Jan?

As Jan wrote, the problem is difficult. No tool can solve the
conceptual problems. The computational problems could manifest
themselves in SQL as straightforward, logically correct, solutions
needing storage and computation utterly beyond what's attainable.