Any time you find yourself writing the same code over and over, you should be either thinking of a DO loop or a macro. Here is an example that jumped out at me yesterday. The problem was this: Every time a student answers a question in our game, it is stored in our database. After…
While I believe SAS Enterprise Guide was developed to make statistical analysis easier for non-programmers, it is also a useful tool for experienced programmers. Often, I find myself thinking, “I KNOW there is a function that does that ….” but I just can’t remember exactly what it is. Take today as an example. I have…
I’m never going to understand the idea that start-ups are for young people. It is like the ads you see where people want a 25-year-old with 15 years of experience, you know, “Expert in C++, systems administration, Linux, Windows, SAS, R, Hadoop, Ruby, Python and Java. Must have 5-plus years experience in development for mobile…
Twenty-eight years ago, I won the world judo championships. Unlike almost everyone else who accomplishes that feat, I did NOT go into running a judo school, selling martial arts supplies, or, more recently, mixed martial arts. Photo courtesy of Hans Gutknecht of the Los Angeles Daily News On the contrary, I immediately went into a…
Several times on this blog, I have mentioned that the most common errors I make, and most programmers*, are the simple things like typing or forgetting to close a bracket or tag. Many of those errors are now automatically fixed by the intellisense of various IDEs (Integrated Development Environment), like Webstorm, but they still pop…
I’ve been somewhat of a fan of SAS On-Demand for Academics, but there are two problems. One is that it runs slow and the other is that it doesn’t run native on a Mac at all. Enter the SAS Web Editor. I just started using it yesterday and so far, I love it. It is…
For reasons I may explain later – or maybe not – I decided to analyze the TIMSS data, which is Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Use a colon: Nifty tip #1 ** Ran this first *** libname LIB ‘C:\TIMSS2007\Data’; proc contents data = lib.G4_ACHIEVE07; *** Modified to only keep math items ; data lib.G4_ACHIEVE07;…
I’ve been fairly positive about SAS On-demand but I think the keyword in that sentence is “fairly”. One of the major advantages of SAS over R (which has no formal tech support) and SPSS (which, before it was bought by IBM you could wait 45 minutes on hold for tech support) is that if you…
So, here we are with a new semester and my second try at using SAS On-Demand with SAS Enterprise Guide in my Advanced Quantitative Data Analysis class. I am toying with the idea of possibly offering JMP as an option as well but leaning towards no since it would mean twice as much explanation of…
But the plans were on display . . .” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a torch.” “Ah, well the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did….