Learning SAS by Example: A Programmer's Guide Reviews

• SAS programmer can grow with this book

  
  By AAIGVWH8LGXT7 on 2007-08-24
  If you just want to casually gain some familiarity with SAS up to the level of Base Programming certification, then probably the Little SAS Book alone will be enough. (At least it worked for me.) That book is economically priced and is famous for being concise and clear. However, when you actually program in SAS or even prepare for the Advanced Programming certification, you will soon find yourself outgrow the "Little" book. Then you need another book like "Learning SAS by Example" to elevate you to the next level. This book is not only concise and clear, but also encyclopaedic and systematic. There are many good "programming by example" SAS books on the market. I am particularly impressed by this book's broad coverage of practical topics and their methodical treatments.
  
  The book is divided into four parts.
  
  Part 1 is a short introduction extended to details like priority of arithmetic operations and Program Data Vector-- stuff that not only beginners will find useful, but also more experienced programmers would not mind to keep as reference.
  
  Part 2 drills on the DATA step. The chapters progress from file I/O, to creating data set, then creating formats and labels, and then writing conditionals and loops. This is just the logical order of a SAS program. Once you have the basics, then the book moves on to the next most common programming issues such as functions (dates, numeric, character), data subsetting, and arrays. These (plus half of Part 3) can essentially get you through the Base exam.
  
  Part 3 covers mundane topics such as report customisation. All major means of data display, i.e., PROC PRINT (with PROC SORT), PROC FREQ, PROC MEANS, PROC TABULATE, PROC REPORT, and ODS, are individually introduced in their own chapters. There is even a bonus chapter on graphs. These things are often underappreciated if not outright overlooked by academians. The author, a retired medical school professor, recognises their importance by going through them one by one. All code examples are listed in a detailed index, earning its title "learning by example". However, I have to say that those examples are not too complicated. That is why I think this book is only basic to intermediate level.
  
  Part 4 gets into more advanced techniques in input handling and data merging. Thank goodness this book is not into "hacks" that involve strings of SYMPUT and %SYSCALL and who-knows-what. Solutions are progressively improved until a clean, intuitive method is achieved. This part also covers audit trails, macros, PROC SQL, and even PROC TRANSPOSE. Except for memory management and PROC DATASETS, I think this book covers almost all the big topics in the Advanced exam. (By the way, this book teaches SQL up to explaining what a join is. But this is a book on SAS, not on SQL. If you want to use PROC SQL effectively, you still need to learn SQL from elsewhere.)
  
  The four-part main content, including exercises, spans for 555 pages. Solutions for odd-numbered problems are included after that. The rest can be found in the support website. Together with the attached CD-ROM, it makes a great resource for self-study and for professional reference. My only major complaint is that this book lacks a good section or even just a good index on OPTIONS (especially NOFMTERR and SPOOL) and on %INCLUDE. Without such tools, it would be hard to share application modules in a real work environment. This new book is also a bit more expensive than its older competitors. But with all the helpful programming tips and recommendations of other good SAS books throughout the pages, a SAS beginner can grow with this book for a long time to come and well make the money worth.
  
  
  

• Great for preparing for a job and SAS Base exam

  
  By A11HP136J57TMJ on 2008-08-30
  When I started learning SAS from this book, I had two goals in mind:
  1. Improve my SAS skills for a SAS programmer job.
  2. Pass SAS Base certification exam.
  
  I decided to use this book and not SAS Certification Prep guide because SAS certification Prep Guide wouldn't teach me how to program like Cody's book did. Cody's book gives lots of exercises to practice.
  
  However, when I took a SAS practice exam, I felt Cody's book didn't prepare me enough in the following areas:
  - reading raw data from external files;
  - subsetting and combining datasets.
  
  So I borrowed SAS Certification Prep Guide from a friend and read chapters on those topics. And I passed the exam.
  
  I also agree with the other reviewer saying that Cody's exercises are rather simple. I found other Cody's book (Applied Statistics and the SAS programming language) more challenging and it contained answers to ALL exercises, not just odd-numbered; but maybe this was because it was my first SAS book.
  
  All in all, I find this book very useful, because I haven't seen other book that would give you exercises along with solutions to half of them. Programming is like math: you need to practice in order to be good at it.
  
  

• Excellent SAS Learning book!

  
  By AON6JRDGEU4HF on 2007-07-27
  This is an excellent SAS programmimg learning book for beginners to intermediate level. The book explains concepts by using codes and followed by an explanation. The excercises at the end of each chapter will challenge you in order to get good understnding of the concepts. if you are a heavy SAS user, this book is not for you for its simplicity. If you are new to SAS programming, I also recommend 'The Little SAS Primer" book. The combination of those two books will certainly lay a solid background in the subject.
  
  

• A great book for beginners to Intermediate users

  
  By A3GT759N8YNIRA on 2008-06-04
  I have used SAS only sparingly over the years, and had a basic knowledge from taking a beginners course about 3 years ago (3 days costing more than $2,000).
  
  However, I learnt more sitting with Ron Cody's book over the last two weeks than I did on that course. This book is great for self-paced study to get an understanding of how SAS works.
  
  Gripes? The fact that only every second question has an answer is annoying, but understandable (to a degree) given that the book can be used as a study tool for schools.
  
  Overall, I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone wanting to be able to move forward with their SAS careers!
  
  

• Wonderful Book for SAS Programmers

  
  By A15KAXFMJ6T0XA on 2009-11-19
  This is a terrific book, especially for beginner-intermediate level SAS users. Plenty of examples guiding readers through the logic and abundant explanation making readers understand the mechanism of programming.
  
  
• Another excellent Ron Cody book
  By A3NV4KAJHKX70I on 2009-07-15
  If you want to learn SAS and like learning by example then thiis is the book for you
  
  
• Outstanding!!
  By A3UF7GCWVCHY1L on 2008-12-16
  About 15 years ago, I had a brief experience with SAS programming. Now, much later, quite a bit older, and experienced at a bunch of unrelated things, I'm back at SAS again and boy am I rusty...!!! Cody's book has been invaluable in getting back with it... It provides excellent practical "How to" examples for nearly everything I need...
  
  
• Good for starters
  By A3G472B5ZI1482 on 2008-06-01
  I found this manual very useful, it has a lot of the required basics to quickly get comfortable with SAS coding. I highly recommend it.
  
  
• Poor copy quality
  By AV4M1UKXB64WE on 2008-07-01
  No doubt about that this book itself is great. However, the paperback book Amazon shipped to me was very poor. There are about 20 pages missing and more than 20 pages that are double coped. The book was new though.
  
  I have ordered 7 or 8 books on Amazon in total. This is the first time I met such bad thing happen. I am kind of hesitate to make any more order on Amazon. Hopefully I won't have bad luck in the future.
  
  
• After the little sas book...
  By A172KMIUUQOYNQ on 2007-08-26
  This is a good place to start after you have exhausted the little sas book.
  
  

• The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Fourth Edition
• Applied Statistics and the SAS Programming Language (5th Edition)
• The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Third Edition
• Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts: Over 1,000 Ways to Improve Your SAS Programs
• SAS For Dummies