SAS Applications Programming: A Gentle Introduction (Duxbury Series in Statistics & Decision Sciences) [Paperback]

Frank C. DiIorio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0534923909 | ISBN-13: 978-0534923907 | Edition: 1

Intended for use as a core text or to supplement any introductory or intermediate level statistics course, this book presents the basics of the SAS system in a well-paced, structured, non-threatening manner. It provides an introduction to the SAS system for data management, analysis, and reporting using the subset of the language ideally suited for beginning students, while at the same time serving as a useful reference for intermediate or advanced users. Students learn the language's power and flexibility with many real-world examples drawn from the author's industry experience. Beginning with an overview of the system, this text shows students how to read data, perform simple analyses, and produce simple reports. More complex topics are carefully introduced, guiding students to manage multiple datasets and write custom reports. More advanced statistical techniques such as correlation, regression, and analysis of variance are presented in later chapters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: Duxbury Press; 1 edition (February 25, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534923909
• ISBN-13: 978-0534923907
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous introduction to SAS essentials, January 17, 2000

By 

Michael Pollard (North America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAS Applications Programming: A Gentle Introduction (Duxbury Series in Statistics & Decision Sciences) (Paperback)

If you are in need of data management or analysis, SAS is likely big on your list. This book gives extremely clear and useful introductions to how SAS is structured, how to manipulate and organize data, and some basic statistical procedures (descriptive statistics, ANOVA, OLS models, etc.) are also presented.

Official SAS manuals are usually bulky, complicated, and difficult to understand, particularly if you have little/no experience with SAS. This book can take a complete beginner through data set creation and manipulation into substantially more complex and important procedures and functions. As this is an introduction to the SAS system, the more advanced functions in SAS, such as SAS STAT, are not covered in any detail. However, in order to understand how to actually use SAS and manipulate data so as to employ these higher level procedures, this book is excellent.

This is the absolute best introduction on how to use the SAS system I have seen, but it has lots of useful information for people with some basic SAS knowledge as well. It is presented in the style of a textbook,with each section concluding with problems (with answers provided) that the aspiring SAS programmer can solve.

If you are just starting to look into SAS, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. 'If I was able to do it, anyone can.'

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, May 13, 2000

By 

Gadgester "No Time, No Money" (Mother Earth) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: SAS Applications Programming: A Gentle Introduction (Duxbury Series in Statistics & Decision Sciences) (Paperback)

This is the best introductory SAS book I have seen. It introduces the basic SAS structure and programming statements. A good and detailed explanation is provided for DATA step vs. PROC, a topic that always proves to be difficult to grasp for SAS newbies.

The book starts with SAS terminology and logic, i.e., how SAS works its magic. It moves on to simple tasks such as reading in data, summarizing it, and displaying it. Then there are chapters on SAS programming elements (expressions, logic flows, etc.) as well as intermediate-advanced statements. The MERGE statement is explained very clearly.

Examples abound, although I feel that they are presented in a very confusing format -- often you can't tell if a block of text belongs to the main text or an example. The organization of the book is also a little confusing, esp. if you want to use it as a reference book (not recommended; stick with SAS manual set instead).

In short, this book provides an excellent ovewview of SAS. Read the chapters in sequence and you'll soon be on your way to happy SAS'ing!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not bad for us amateurs, October 3, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Rockville, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAS Applications Programming: A Gentle Introduction (Duxbury Series in Statistics & Decision Sciences) (Paperback)

I was a SAS tyro when I purchased this book. I had taken the 4 day SAS for programmers course, and I was practically helpless. After I had worked the examples in this book, I was actually able to do useful work in SAS. The book continued to be a useful reference on elementary "how to" issues for the next year. The data disk provides innumerable worked examples of the sort that arise in day-to-day SAS work. I am grateful to the authors for making my entry into this business less painful than I had feared. The title is right on target. It is an introduction. Very soon, my SAS problems were past its purview.