Kirill Orlov...contd.
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Kirill visits the offices of SPSS Moscow
He first became an SPSS user because of his need to perform a factor analysis on his research data and found that SPSS was well suited to the task. He learned SPSS by trial and error beginning with version 5 in 1995. Entirely self-taught, he found it necessary to teach himself transformation commands, looping structures, DO IFs, macros, etc. He keeps a “little black book” in which he writes the most important things as he sees them—not exactly how they are described in the users manual—or things that are not included in the manual.

He says, “You cannot escape learning by trial and error if you want to use syntax language regularly. If you don’t know the limitations, hazards and possible errors of syntax, you will arrive at difficulties—as I do every day. If I do everything as specified in the guide and it doesn’t work, I look into my little book and find that I wrote, “Do not do this in a certain situation…do this instead. SPSS has a long story of development and, because of that, its syntax is like a living being. It is contradictory in many respects, although it is very rich, and we should know it profoundly, not just by looking into the guide.”

Kirill’s primary SPSS tools, in addition to the Base module, are Regression Models, Categories and Advanced Statistics, but he is also familiar with and uses, when the need arises, Statistica (StatSoft), Statgraphics, GenStat, NCSS, STADIA (a Russian product), Systat and Microsoft Excel.
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