Marta García Granero: I try, but I know I’m not really disciplined. I try to learn from my husband. He’s really organized, I’m not. But I keep on forgetting and I go back to my bad habits.

King Douglas: Has your expertise in SPSS influenced the way you approach your other work?

Marta García Granero: My work is centered on SPSS teaching. The writing of clear, parsimonious code leads me to being a better teacher, create better explanations, clearer explanations.

King Douglas: Among experts, the consensus is that it is important to learn and use syntax. Why is that the case when SPSS makes it possible for the user to do most things via point and click?

Marta García Granero: Several reasons: Speed, for instance. Using the SPSS GUI only is like having a Ferrari Testarrosa and driving it only at 50 miles an hour. Then there’s repeatability—I don't like to call it automation because it implies lack of user supervision or control.

Sometimes people don't remember how they got a certain result…it happened to someone at the University once. They were absolutely unable to repeat their results because they lost the filtering variable used to select a certain group of cases. And using custom code you can fill almost any gap in statistical methods covered by SPSS.

I started with syntax, which I thought was the right way. I must confess that for a time, after I had thoroughly learned SPSS syntax, the GUI seduced me. A coworker at the University said I had been seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, but I replied that the GUI was the Dark Side (faster, easier, more attractive, but less powerful). I rarely use the GUI, now, for my work, but I let my students use it (syntax is far too complicated for them), although now and then I make them to click on the PASTE button, instead of OK, and help them modify the syntax.

King Douglas: What SPSS timesavers do you employ most often? By timesavers, I mean something like reusing snippits of code.

Marta García Granero: I like DO REPEATS. I turn into macros any code I know I'm going to use frequently, like Art Kendall's code to compute age from two dates. I have a short collection of macros stored in a file called MACROS.SPS. Also, as I use MATRIX a lot, I always reuse data reading and results printing commands, and I never start a MATRIX program from scratch.

King Douglas: Have you ever taught a formal class in SPSS?

Marta García Granero: Yes, every year at the University. Besides theory classes, my students also have a 20 hours lab where they learn how to write datasets and how to get the most usual statistical tests. Although I let my students use the GUI, now and then they have to click on "Paste" instead of "OK" to take a look at the syntax and modify it a bit before running it. They must also use some MACROS I've written, but I can see they hate that. They are not happy when they leave the safety of the GUI.

King Douglas: Say you have creatively soled a particularly difficult problem, with even a flash of brilliance. Whom do you tell?

Marta García Granero: I wish I could tell my husband, but he says, “No, no, please don’t!” If it is really interesting, I send it to the list or to Raynald Levesque’s page, “Hi, Raynald, I have written something I think is quite interesting. If you have time—I know you are a busy person—add it to your web page.”

King Douglas: Do you have friends who are skilled in SPSS or statistics or have other computer or programming skills?

Marta García Granero: Not in Pamplona. But I tend to consider that Richard, Ray and Hector are friends of mine. I have never met them, but I consider them friends.

King Douglas: What advice do you have for the participants at the SPSS users’ conference?

Marta García Granero: Keep on learning—never stop learning. Learn both statistics and SPSS at the same time.