SAS Applications Programming: A Gentle Introduction

by Frank C. DiIorio

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0534923909
• ISBN13: 9780534923907
• Release Date: February 1991
• Publisher: Duxbury Resource Center
• Length: 684 Pages
• Weight: 3.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent beginner's book

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.

Good for beginners

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!

A fabulous introduction to SAS essentials

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.'

Excellent introduction

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.

Very comprehensive and easy to follow.

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!