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SAS Programming

  • 04-05-2009 11:36am
    #1
    Daithio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,679 ✭✭✭


    A lot of jobs that I'm interested in regard this as a big plus. Has anybody on here got any experience with it? I have a pretty solid econometrics background, but never got around to covering this. Any advice as to how a complete beginner would go about learning it? I can't really afford to pay for much more than maybe a decent book, any recommendations would be cool. I have access to the software through uni.

    Thanks in advance


Comments

  • #2
    JA1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27 ✭JA1


    Daithio wrote: »
    A lot of jobs that I'm interested in regard this as a big plus. Has anybody on here got any experience with it? I have a pretty solid econometrics background, but never got around to covering this. Any advice as to how a complete beginner would go about learning it? I can't really afford to pay for much more than maybe a decent book, any recommendations would be cool. I have access to the software through uni.

    Thanks in advance

    Hi,
    I worked as a SAS programmer in the late 80's. It was a very powerful 4GL even then. I have used it in Statistical Analysis, Ops Research, General programming, Reporting and as a datawarehouse.

    I would contact the SAS institute in Dublin and ask if you could work for free for a few months to get experience. Otherwise, see if they have a client list and contact them for same. I know AIB and Hibernia use it and would assume several other larger financial instutions would also.

    In meantime, I would buy the manual and read up on it.

    Hopes this helps,

    JA1


  • #3
    thebman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,012 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    Just looking at this, it looks a lot like Matlab TBH. Is there a major difference? The interface looks the same and the syntax looks very similar. If you knew one you could learn the other fairly easily I'd say so might be worth looking at.

    There is an Open Source alternative called Octave to Matlab which might be of interest if you want to trying something similar out legally for free. We used Matlab in Computer Science for working with large datasets and manipulating audio and for Neural networks. I used Octave on my laptop as an alternative since it has a compatible syntax with Matlab.

    I've only googled SAS now BTW so am in no way an expert on it. If Octave is suitable to learn on, I suggested it as it has a large manual available freely too as it is Open Source software. It is available at the below address:
    http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/


  • #4
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Old fashioned advice but:

    Learn to program first using a beginners language then move onto a 4GL language like SAS, Mathlab, Mathematica and what have you. Your code will be better for it. Once you're used to programming (and more importantly used to creating your own algorithms to solve problems) it's pretty trivial to pick up a new language to a competent (not expert) level.


  • #5
    Daithio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,679 ✭✭✭Daithio


    nesf wrote: »
    Old fashioned advice but:

    Learn to program first using a beginners language then move onto a 4GL language like SAS, Mathlab, Mathematica and what have you. Your code will be better for it. Once you're used to programming (and more importantly used to creating your own algorithms to solve problems) it's pretty trivial to pick up a new language to a competent (not expert) level.

    Thanks, I was actually hoping you'd reply in this thread! Any advice as to what would be the most useful beginner's language to start on? Also do you know of any good intro books? Thanks again for all the replies.


  • #6
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Daithio wrote: »
    Thanks, I was actually hoping you'd reply in this thread! Any advice as to what would be the most useful beginner's language to start on? Also do you know of any good intro books? Thanks again for all the replies.

    BASIC, is what it says on the tin (and the first language I learned over 20 years ago when I was a kid): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC

    You should be able to get some free compilers for it and there's plenty of stuff on the web about learning how to program. Just mess around until you get your head around algorithms, loop structures etc. Your other option would be a more modern language like C or C++.


    I've never programmed in SAS so I've no specific advice on it other than from experience with Mathematica, Labview etc, if you know how to program it's just a matter of figuring out the new syntax. Other people hold the view (and it's a reasonable one) that you can start with a 4th generation language but I think getting to know the nuts and bolts with a general language is better than starting with one that has loads of built-in functions to do the work for you. Even writing a simple program in C to do a simple linear regression for you can be useful I think.


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