2009 is almost over, and us SAS employees are busy compiling information for our managers to answer the question, "Just what did you do this year, anyway?"
I'm asking the same question of you, Dear Reader. What did you get from this blog in 2009?
Here are the most visited topics from The SAS Dummy blog (not in any particular order) for the past 12 months:
SAS Enterprise Guide for SAS programmers
Clearly it's a topic that people care about, as you can read from the comments. And it's the subject of a webinar tomorrow. Tune in!
Lengths and Formats: the long and short of it
What's the difference between LENGTH and FORMAT? This topic is so popular I've made sure to work it into SAS 9.2 for Dummies (due out this spring).
Creating a SAS format from a data set
Once you know what a FORMAT is, you want an easy way to build one, right? This is an add-on task for SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 and will be built into our next release.
Importing SPSS files into SAS Enterprise Guide
It was an add-on task for SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1, and it's built into SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2.
Running SAS PROCs on your Facebook Friends
PROC MAFIAWARS is not available yet. And although SAS got its start as a tool to analyze agricultural research data, the FARMVILLE procedure is still in the very early stages.
Announcement: SAS on the Wii
SAS users do appreciate a good joke! (You do realize it was a joke, right? I'll admit our legal department wasn't completely amused at first...)
Thanks for reading. Keep your comments coming!
3 Comments
from the blog "SAS Enterprise Guide for SAS programmers", I finally understood that Enterprise Guide fills a niche(or 2) - it's not a niche that those "SAS programmers" seek - - and this is not the only, but certainly the most important clarification I've gleaned in 2009
Those without personal legacy in SAS lose nothing in Enterprise Guide. Those who do have a legacy of "learning the interfaces to SAS before Enterprise Guide" find these legacies continue to provide value and need to discover how Enterprise Guide can add value for them (including me!).
Still learning SAS after 30 years.
PeterC
Thanks for the comment Peter. You're right: we should probably talk about SAS programmers approaching Enterprise Guide from two viewpoints:
- as a person who is intimately familiar with "traditional" SAS and display manager and all of the built-in command stuff geared towards programmers with console-friendly affordances.
- as a person who simply wants access to the power of the SAS programming language, and not necessarily be restricted to what a point-and-click application can provide "out of the box".
I believe we've got the latter covered. We're still working on the former by building in compelling programmer features in upcoming releases.
Chris
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