Be a code poet laureate

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|March 6, 2012

The next time you write a DATA step, try to express it in iambic pentameter.  Or instead of a SAS macro function, how about a SAS macro sonnet?  (Or, for the more base among you, a limerick?) That’s the spirit behind the code {poems} project.  You write a poem in [...]

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Reaching a dubious peak

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|January 27, 2012

So many of us struggle with this mountain. In fact, 68.27% of us get within sight of reaching the summit (while 95.47% of us are at least on a perceivable slope). We run, walk, crawl and sometimes slide our way uphill (from one direction or the other) until we finally [...]

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Poetry on our own terms

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|October 21, 2011

Within the SAS documentation there must be thousands of unique words.  But ten words occur more than any others within the SAS documentation corpus: SAS, data, statement, option, set, value, variable,  PROC, model, table. This is according to one of our staff terminologists, Vicki Leary, who helps to keep our use of these words consistent and [...]

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Putting the "Guide" in Enterprise Guide

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|November 15, 2010

Some of you will remember that in the very early versions of SAS Enterprise Guide, we introduced a unique approach to helping you to learn SAS: an animated “agent” who could suggest your next steps within your project. We furloughed the agent (who appeared usually as a wizard, genie, or [...]

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An "Enterprise Guide" in a parallel universe

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|November 10, 2010

Dear Readers, You might visit this blog for many reasons, chief among them to learn useful information about SAS. You know that I often post tips about SAS Enterprise Guide, and sometimes people go so far as to call this a “SAS Enterprise Guide” blog*. But for all of the [...]

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I'll be seeing you in all the familiar places

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|September 12, 2010

For the first time in a decade, I have a new official role and title at SAS. But what’s remarkable about my new role isn’t how much of my job will change, but how much of it will remain the same. I’m giving up my role as a software manager, [...]

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Thinking economically

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|June 28, 2010

As I mentioned in a recent post, I’ve just completed reading Dear Undercover Economist by Tim Hartford. I acquired a copy of Tim’s book at the SAS Professionals Convention, and I was fortunate enough to meet Tim in person and have him sign the book. He impressed me as very [...]

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SAS programming for the faint of heart

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|April 9, 2010

When we published the first edition of SAS For Dummies a couple of years ago, we received feedback from readers around the topic of SAS programming. In the book’s introduction, we stated that the book doesn’t cover the SAS programming language, but that there are many other fine books that [...]

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In the year 9999...

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|April 5, 2010

…if man is still alive, will he be importing Excel spreadsheets and wondering why his leap years are off? I received this report from SAS Technical Support, on behalf of a customer who uses SAS Enterprise Guide to import spreadsheet data: The date “12/31/9999″ will import as “02Jan****” when reading [...]

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SAS For Dummies: now, with extra awesome

Chris Hemedinger
Chris Hemedinger|April 1, 2010

SAS For Dummies 2nd Edition is now available. It’s not just more of the same — it’s got lots of cool new stuff in it too. It’s completely updated for SAS 9.2. It’s got a new chapter on data mining. And it’s got a new chapter on SAS programming. I [...]

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