AnnMaria's blog describing her acceptance of SAS Enterprise Guide, despite the shortcomings she's found, reminded me of this Irish Spring commercial.

I'd like to take the time to craft a more thoughtful response to her post, but that will have to wait for a less-hectic day. In the meantime, I take her critical points: SAS Enterprise Guide is big and it can be hard to find your way around, and those who prefer SAS programming might find the point-and-clickiness of the app gets in their way. (She had plenty of nice things to say about it as well. Don't take my word for it: read the post.)

As a personal testimonial, I can say that I do a fair amount of SAS programming in my job, and I use SAS Enterprise Guide exclusively for this. But I know my way around it better than most folks, and so I know how to play to its strengths. I need to post some more tips for programmers soon, so that you all can learn to love (or at least live with) SAS Enterprise Guide too.

Like AnnMaria, humorist Dave Barry (who spoke at the SAS Global Forum) had something to say about the nature of men, and had this advice: "Women, lower your expectations."

But I appreciate that our customers have high expectations for our software. They should expect to be more productive, and to be able to use our software to let their own brilliance shine through. I believe the pieces are there, and that sometimes all that's needed is a pointer in the right direction.