Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.'

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!

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.

I learned the hard way when it comes to SAS. I would type code, submit in a batch mode on the mainframe and watch the logs with all kinds of errors. I only wish I had known about this book when I first started programming in SAS. Good job Frank!

I went to the Fundamentals of SAS course held at the SAS Institute and was left in dire need of more information. This book was a first step. The exercises in the book were helpful and reinforcing. If you need more than brginner's knowledge, then you'll have to purchase another book but this is good to get started.

I started learning SAS with this book. Of the various introductory/intermediate guides to SAS I've read, I think this is the best organized and easiest to follow.

SAS is very confusing at first, and most books don't help much at first. This is an exception.

After this book, there are lots of other good books on SAS, but this is where I'd start.

I used this book in grad school to refresh my very limited SAS knowledge for a course I was doing. I'd used other books during my undergrad days, but none of them was as helpful as this one. It's a good way for a beginner to ease themselves into SAS without getting tangled in the complexities.

Now, several years down the road with many years of experience as a SAS programmer, I still recommend this book to anyone who asks me to point them in the direction of a good book to use for learning SAS.

This book is the least helpful SAS book I've had. This was the first SAS book I used and was required to purchase it for a class. Since then I've been using SAS for about 6 years and this book has never helped answer any of my questions. There are far superior Introductory SAS books out there like SAS Programming by Example and The Little SAS Book, anything else that you need to know you would be better off searching for on the internet.

I suggest getting both a book like this, for its greater comprehensivity, combined with another one (like 'SAS programming By Example') for its more user friendly accessibility, if you are a beginner. Both books can be used as a starting text, and having two books can be better than one, and each one complements the other.