Makefiles for social scientists

Short example of using makefiles with R and Stata

Main files

• get_data.do: Downloads sample data from ats.ucla.edu and saves it to a .dta file.
• model.do: Runs basic regression models on the data
• figures.R: Uses ggplot2 in R to create a few figures
• Makefile.example: Fully working Makefile that links all these files together. We'll create this together.

Instructions

Make sure you do the following things before we do this together:

OS X

1. Download R and install it.
2. Download RStudio and install it.
3. Register as an Apple Developer.
4. Download the "Command Line Tools (OS X xxxx) for Xcode", with Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks in place of xxxx. Install it.
5. Install the Stata terminal utility (Stata > Install Terminal Utility…)

Windows

1. Download R and install it.
2. Download RStudio and install it.
3. Download Make for Windows and install it.