SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User's Guide 1st ed. Edition

The latest book in Phil Holland’s Power User’s Guide series, SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques, is an unmitigated tour de force. It contains fourteen fact-filled chapters covering three very relevant main topic areas: Programming and Efficiency Techniques, External Interfaces, and Data Visualization. As with the other books in the Power User’s Guide series, this book is written in Phil’s authoritative, but conversation style and has lots and lots of code examples that illustrate real-world SAS programming solutions.There are so many usable programming gems in this book—even for very experienced SAS programming professionals—that it is hard to call them all out in a brief review. However, three specifically come to mind because they can save any organization much more than the price of the book.Part I: Programming Efficiency Techniques, Chapter 1: The Basics of Efficient SAS Coding. In this chapter, Phil discusses speed versus low maintenance. It is a very nuanced discussion that should make seasoned SAS programmers reconsider what they might have thought was the obvious choice.Part II: External Interfaces, Chapter 4: SAS to R to SAS. Because of its powerful statistical and graphic capabilities, its low price (it is actually free), and its popularity in academic institutions, R has gained entry into the programming infrastructure of many organizations—including my own. So, sooner or later you are going to need to interface with R; and when you do, you will reach for the examples in this chapter.Part II: External Interfaces, Chapter 8: Everyday Uses for the SAS Output Delivery System (ODS). The section titled Disguising a Web Page is absolutely brilliant and worth the price of the book. I have bookmarked that page and already begun using this simple, but deeply clever technique in my own SAS programs.My prediction is that when you purchase SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide, it will not sit in your programming bookshelf between other SAS programming books. Instead, it will be beside your keyboard on your desk with pages dog-eared and a dozen yellow sticky-notes protruding from various pages. Mark my word!

Philip Holland is one of my favorite SAS authors because of his talent for whittling complex topics down to the critical concepts. This book brings together his work on seemingly disparate topics: SAS programming efficiency, external interfaces, and data visualization. As different as these topics are, they are all challenges that professional SAS programmers face on a regular basis. As someone who does not know R, I did find myself wishing for more from the chapter on interfacing SAS with R, but that's not a criticism since teaching R is not the purpose of this book. This book is NOT for rank beginners. However, intermediate to advanced professional SAS programmers (and even experienced programmers who are new to SAS) will find this book useful and enlightening.By the way, this book replaces two of Holland's previous books: "Power User's Guide to SAS Programming" and "Power User's Guide to SAS Graph Templates" which are now both "retired" and out of print.This book is called "A Power User's Guide" not so much because it is FOR power users as because using these techniques MAKES you a power user. Highly recommended.

Phil has always been a pioneer in SAS programming techniques notably in the more esoteric aspects. He frequently writes on the combination of SAS and other programming languages which can be linked to create more interesting softwares and solutions to business problems. Being one of the pioneers of graphical template language, Phil has championed the use of visualisations to demonstrate clear business insights to many problems. This book is the culmination of years of field experience of Phil in the use of SAS. The book is guaranteed to deliver new techniques to anyone from beginners to veterans.

I like it though it came very late

Hätte ich mehr erwartet. Habe mir das Buch wegen Grafikerstellung gekauft. GTL kommt mir viel zu kurz.Das Buch geht hier leider nicht ins Detail sondern gibt nur mehr oder weniger einen Überblick. Eventuell waren meine Erwartungen zu hoch . Zumindest am Anfang des Buches gibt es ein paar schöne Tipps, die mir gefallen haben.