Contributed by Michele Burlew, president of Episystems Inc. and SAS Publishing author

What a great way to end 2009 by having both Combining and Modifying SAS Data Sets: Examples, Second Edition (CMDS) and Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond (ODS) in print! Each is a hefty stocking stuffer for that hard-to-shop-for SAS programmer!

I started with an excellent foundation in the first edition of the CMDS book. This edition showed readers the fundamentals of combining and modifying SAS data sets. My goal was to update it to SAS 9.2 and to add some more examples. The second edition includes newer features like hash tables and regular expressions, and it includes many of the new SAS 9.2 functions. Some of these features I hadn’t used too much when I started revising the book so it was a great opportunity for me to learn more in depth about these features by writing about them.

My first step with CMDS was to reorganize the chapters. I had observed that the style of presenting discussions about combining data sets had changed to a physical description of combining them horizontally and vertically so my first step was to reorganize the book along those lines. Another goal was to complement DATA step code with equivalent PROC SQL code, and vice versa, where it made sense. The first edition was published about the time that PROC SQL was first made available, and now PROC SQL is much more widely used.

I started programming in SAS long before PROC SQL was available. Now I use it all the time and feel that I can judge fairly well whether I should use PROC SQL or a DATA step to solve a programming task. It’s second nature for me to write DATA steps and PROC steps to combine data sets. I had to work at it to become more familiar with PROC SQL. One thing that would have helped me in learning PROC SQL is to have both the DATA step code and PROC SQL code to do the same task. So I felt there might be many SAS programmers out there like me – either experienced DATA step programmers or experienced SQL programmers - who could use both solutions.

Writing a book as part of a team was a new experience for me with the ODS book. It was a great honor to have Lauren and Cynthia ask me to join them in finishing up the second edition of this book. Again, I was lucky to start with a great foundation. Lauren’s first edition was thorough and well-designed. The side-by-side layout of examples with text and explanation on the left-hand page and screen shots of output and figures on the right-hand page is a good way to learn. Cynthia’s in-depth knowledge of ODS and natural talent in teaching contributed greatly to this new edition.

Yes, it was a busy book-writing 2009 for me! What was my secret to getting two books done during this time? Simon, the cat. He’s an excellent combination arm weight and heat pack for keeping me at the keyboard.