When I was at the annual SAS Global Forum conference, I had the pleasure of discussing statistical programming and SAS/IML software with dozens of SAS customers.

I was asked at least ten times, "How do I get started with SAS/IML software?" or "How can I learn PROC IML?" Here is my list of the top five resources for beginners who are learning to program in the SAS/IML language:

1. Read Statistical Programming with SAS/IML Software. Yes, I am the author, so please forgive the self-promotion, but the reason I wrote the book is so that people can learn how to use SAS/IML software efficiently. By special arrangement with SAS Press, the "Getting Started" chapter of my book is available as a free download.
2. Subscribe to The DO Loop blog. On Mondays I post "Getting Started" topics. You can click on the Getting Started category in the sidebar to see all of my Getting Started articles to date.
3. Ask questions at the SAS/IML Discussion Forum. Follow the best practices for getting a response.
4. Read the first few chapters of the SAS/IML User's Guide. In 2010, the first six introductory chapters were rewritten to make the documentation more useful for beginners. The "Language Reference" chapter was also improved so that each function and subroutine has an explicit cut-and-paste example.
5. If you do not have a license for SAS/IML at your workplace, consider downloading the free SAS University Edition, which is part of the SAS Analytics U initiative. SAS University Edition supports SAS/IML software, which means that everyone can now learn the SAS/IML language!