Highlights from SAS Global Forum 2013

I’ve already written about one highlight of SAS Global Forum 2013: the SAS Web Editor. Here are some more features that I think deserve mention. Please note that I make no claims about the comprehensiveness or completeness of this list.

SAS 9.4 and Enterprise Guide 6.1 are scheduled for release in June and bring some important new features.  Here are a few:

ODS POWERPOINT destination  The usefulness of this destination is obvious.  There will be two new styles designed specifically for PowerPoint: one with a white background and one with a black background.  You can use other styles too, but these new styles have the advantage of being fully compatible with the PowerPoint theme selector.  Any graphs you create using ODS Graphics will be embedded in this destination.

ODS LAYOUT  If I remember correctly, the first time I ever heard about the ODS LAYOUT statement was at SUGI 28 in 2003.  I don’t know why it has taken so long to move to production, but I’m glad it’s finally here. If you need custom reports that combine results from multiple procedures, then you will probably love ODS LAYOUT.

PROC ODSLIST and PROC ODSTEXT  These new procedures allow you to create bulleted lists and formatted blocks of text in reports. The content can be static or dynamic (based on a data set).

ODS Graphics  The SG procedures continue to mature.  When I attended Dan Heath’s super-demo on SG procedures, members of the audience repeatedly said “Oh, good, I need that.” New features include a SORT= option in SGPANEL, insets in SGPANEL, split characters for tick and axis labels, and PERCENT and MEDIAN options for STAT=.

Enterprise Guide  For a long time, one of the problems with Enterprise Guide was that it kept evolving so quickly that users felt like they had to learn it all over again with each release. EG users will be glad to know that EG 6.1 uses the same basic layout as EG 4.2 and 5.1.  Improvements in EG 6.1 include sticky notes and a log summary to help people who write code.  Developer Casey Smith said there will be better integration with the ODS Graphics Editor.  I am glad to hear that ODS Graphics is being supported in EG, and I would like to see this dramatically increased. EG users should have the best graphics that SAS can offer.

SGF is finally global  28 percent of attendees were from outside the US.  I have attended SGF and it’s predecessor SUGI for decades, and most of that time I didn’t see a single attendee from outside the US. It’s exciting to see SAS Global Forum living up to its name.

Finally, if you didn’t get to attend SGF (or even if you did) there were some great presentations that you should watch.  I know these have been mentioned by many other people, but they are surprisingly hard to find online. So here are the links:

Opening Session The Opening Session was informative and included an amazing performance by the dance troupe Les Ombres.

Roger Craig’s talk about how he used analytics to train to be a contestant on Jeopardy! was fascinating.

SAS on the Mac is Back

SAS Global Forum ended two weeks ago.  I thought by now someone would have written about SAS on the Mac and saved me the trouble, but since I don’t see much discussion of this in the blogosphere, here are my belated two cents.

If you have been using SAS as long as I have, then you probably know that running SAS on a Mac is nothing new.  SAS Institute released SAS for the Mac lo these many years ago, but then dropped it just a couple years later because there weren’t enough users (read licenses) to justify it. And since then, of course, Mac users have gotten several different products that allow them to run Windows software.  So anyone who really wants to run SAS on a Mac has had that ability for a while.

Given that history, the last thing I expected to see at the Opening Session was a demo of SAS on the Mac–much less on the iPad.

Of course, this is not the same SAS for the Mac that was dropped so long ago.  This is the SAS Web Editor.

The SAS Web Editor is a nimble version of Display Manager that runs in a browser (any HTML 5 compliant browser).  I learned about it just over a month ago when my husband mentioned to me, as we ate dinner, that he had read an interesting blog describing the SAS Web Editor.  Thank you to AnnMaria deMars for getting the word out!  Here is an official press release from SAS Institute dated March 6, 2013.  The SAS Web Editor is a client-server application.  The editor is the client.  To use it, you must have SAS running on some server. That server can be local or remote.  Considering how aggressively SAS Institute has promoted cloud computing over the last decade, it is perhaps surprising that it has taken this long to come up with Display Manager for the Web.  The SAS Web Editor feels like a missing link.  It makes a lot of sense.

Here are some specifics from the Opening Session.  They used the SAS Web Editor in a browser on the Mac to access VMware to run SAS for Linux on the same Mac.  Then they demoed the SAS Web Editor on an iPad (pictured above) which also used the Mac as its server.  (Currently academic users of the SAS Web Editor use SAS Institute’s servers.  Maybe for the opening session they were concerned about slow connection speeds to Cary.  Given the complaints I’ve heard about the internet service at the Moscone Center, this is easy to believe.)

Of course, you can use the SAS Web Editor on Windows (which is what I am doing).  So I find it interesting that they chose to demo it on Apple hardware.  Not only did they show Macs and iPads in the Opening Session, but I saw a lot of iPads being used by SAS staff at the conference.  I think this was a smart move for SAS Institute.  Firstly, there is an undeniable Cool Factor associated with Apple hardware that can only help SAS’s reputation.  At the present, SAS is loosing the battle for the academic market.  Maybe this will help turn the tide.  Secondly, this is a good time to distance oneself from Windows.  This fact was underscored for me by an article in last week’s Economist magazine titled “Microsoft blues: Windows 8 is only the beginning of Microsoft’s problems.”

A few other interesting tidbits about the SAS Web Editor:  It is not exactly the same as Display Manager, but the developers showing it in the Demo Room made it clear that they are working hard to get the kinks out. It is currently available only for academic use, but in the Opening Session it was said that it will be available as a free download–no mention of when. They also mention that it will be available for Android platforms.

You can still view the Opening Session online. The SAS Web Editor demo starts around 1 hour in.

Debugging at SGF

Most people think that all insects are bugs, but, in fact, only species belonging to the order Hemiptera are considered by scientists to be “true bugs.”  There are about 932,000 species of insects, but only 82,000 species of true bugs.  Fortunately for us, there are a lot fewer species of SAS bugs.

SAS bugs can be classified into three general types: syntax, data, and logic.

• Syntax errors result when your program fails to follow SAS’s rules about the way keywords are put together to make statements.
• Data errors happen when you have a program that is syntactically sound, but the data values do not fit the program as it was written.
• Logic errors happen when you have a program that runs, and data that fits, but the result is wrong because the program gave the wrong instructions.

Debugging is one of my favorite topics.  I  believe that debugging your programs is not only necessary, but also a good way to gain insight into how SAS works.  Once you understand why you got an error, a warning, or a note; you’ll be better able to avoid problems in the future.  In other words, people who are good debuggers are good programmers.

I’m looking forward to talking about bugs (both the SAS kind, and some of the creepy-crawly kind too) at SAS Global Forum next week.  If you will be at there, maybe you can catch my presentation.

Errors, Warnings, and Notes (Oh My!): A Practical Guide to Debugging SAS Programs

Tuesday, May 30, 3:30-4:20 Moscone Center Room 2008

I hope you can come to SAS Global Forum, but if you can’t, there are still a lot of great ways to learn and share the excitement.

You can view my paper here.

You can view the proceedings for all SGF 2013 papers here.

You can view some great presentations on SAS Global Forum Take-Out.

You can even view much of the conference live.

Three Things I Learned As a SAS LUG Leader

I recently had the privilege of speaking at a meeting of the Toronto Area SAS Society.  It was a great meeting, and, honestly, I’m not saying this just because I was one of the speakers.  TASS is the best run local user group I have seen.  They have found the right balance of SAS Institute and user involvement so that they can all pull together without getting in each other’s way.  I was impressed by the high level of enthusiasm and professionalism displayed, especially by Art Tabachneck and Matt Malczewski.

Attending TASS brought back memories for me, memories of the eight years that I led the Sacramento Valley SAS Users Group.  I’m proud of my record.  My goal was to have three meetings a year, and, with the help of many local SAS users, I met that goal.  We had a perfect record, in fact.  Under my leadership we held 25 successful meetings in a row.

It was fun, I worked with some great people, and, of course, I learned some things.  However, some of the things I learned surprised me.  So for all LUG leaders and for everyone who is thinking about becoming a LUG leader, I present

Three Things I Learned As a SAS Local User Group Leader

1) There is a vacuum of leadership in the world. 
Lots of people want to be followers; few want to lead.  If you have any interest in being a leader, you will find abundant opportunities.  And you don’t have to start a group (although that is not a bad idea).  There are lots of organizations (PTAs, clubs, RUGs, LUGs) just waiting for you to step into a leadership role.  Don’t make them beg.  Go ahead, volunteer!

2) You should never start anything without having an exit plan.
I hope this doesn’t sound negative because, honestly, it’s not.  It’s just a fact. The default exit plan is “I will do this for the rest of my life.”  That’s not a bad exit plan.  In fact, it’s an excellent exit plan if the thing you are starting is a marriage or, say, parenthood.  However, most people don’t want to be LUG leaders for the rest of their life.  Therefore, it behooves you to have a plan in place for passing the reins to the next leader of your LUG before you take charge.

3) You need to give yourself credit because other people might not.
For some people this comes naturally; for others it doesn’t.  If you are a modest person, then it’s time to learn how to toot your own horn.  You’re working hard. Let everyone know it!  I understand now why the governor has his picture splashed all over the state website. He’s good at giving himself credit.  You can be too.

SAS has an amazing network of users groups–international, regional, local and in-house–all of which provide great opportunities for networking and learning.  SAS Global Forum is, of course, the ultimate SAS users group, but if you can’t attend SGF, there are lots of others.  The SAS Support site lists many groups.  Why not get involved?

SGF 2011 Redux

It may just be me, but every time I attend SAS Global Forum, I always leave feeling that I have missed a large part of the conference.  There are too many things going on at once and in too many different places for me to catch it all.  Fortunately, for those of us who have yet to master being-in-multiple-places-at-the-same-time, we do get a second chance.  Here are three ways to experience SGF right now:

Conference Proceedings  Most people are aware that papers from the conference can be found online.  You can do a search to find papers related to your interests.  A search for “ODS Graphics,” for example, returned no fewer than 50 papers—enough to keep me busy for quite a while.

Best Contributed Paper Awards   Don’t want to search through hundreds of papers? Why not start with the best by checking out the winners of the Best Contributed Paper Award for each section of the conference?

SAS Global Forum Take-Out  Or better yet, watch videos of some of the best papers in SGF’s Take-Out program from the comfort of your own cubicle.

Highlights of SGF 2011

I’ve been so busy over the last month that I am just now getting a chance to sort through my notes from SAS Global Forum 2011.  Here are a few highlights I found:

SAS OnDemand for Academics

SAS OnDemand for Academics (the cloud computing version of SAS) will be free for academic research starting in Fall of 2011.  This is exciting news!  I’m surprised it didn’t get a lot more attention at the conference.  Since Fall 2010, SAS OnDemand for Academics has been free for use by students enrolled in courses that use SAS.  However, the number of professors and students doing research is far greater than the number of students enrolled in courses that use SAS.  In addition, professors now have more reason to teach SAS because students will be able to use it after the class is over.  This change will help SAS to compete with R since the main reason that R is so popular is because it is free, but SAS Institute will need to work hard to get the word out.

New output in SAS 9.3

SAS 9.3—which is expected to be released this summer—will bring major enhancements to output.  For the first time ever, text output (AKA listing) will no longer be the default.  HTML will become the default destination for output in Display Manager, and a new default style template, HTMLBlue, will make our output pretty.  Of course, you will still be able to turn on text output for those times when you need vanilla instead of mocha-almond-fudge.

ODS Graphics will be part of Base SAS starting with SAS 9.3

ODS Graphics (which became production with SAS 9.2) continues to grow in both features and popularity.  In SAS 9.2 you need a SAS/GRAPH license to use ODS Graphics, but starting with SAS 9.3 it will be part of Base SAS.  This is good news because it will make sophisticated graphs available to all users of SAS/STAT regardless of whether they have a SAS/GRAPH license.  This should also help SAS to compete with R since the second most common reason that people use R is because it produces graphics. (Of course, traditional SAS/GRAPH still does a lot of things that ODS Graphics doesn’t, and you will still need a SAS/GRAPH license to use traditional SAS/GRAPH.)

ODS Graphics will be on by default in SAS 9.3 in Display Manager

One of the problems with ODS Graphics in SAS 9.2 is that you need to turn it on.  Many of the people who need it most (occasional statistical users) never learned about it and therefore never turned it on.  SAS 9.3 will fix this problem by producing graphs for statistical procedures automatically.  This applies only to statistical procedures run in Display Manager; for jobs run in batch, ODS Graphics will still be off by default.

New features in ODS Graphics

In addition to becoming part of Base SAS and being on by default, ODS Graphics will deliver many new features in SAS 9.3.  Here are a few of the ones that I’m excited about: bin control on histograms, side-by-side bar charts, ability to control the order of groups, grouped box plots, interval box plots, ability to produce bar charts from pre-summarized data, ability to draw a line using slope-intercept values, and even pie charts—because corporations still produce annual reports despite Stephen Few’s quixotic ranting against them.

New ODS Graphics documentation

One highlight of SGF was something I didn’t see.  SAS developers Sanjay Matange and Dan Heath have written a book about SG procedures.  A pre-production draft of his book was on display in the Demo Room, but I didn’t get to see it because both copies of the book were stolen!  Julie Platt, Editor-in-Chief for SAS Press, told me that this is the first time a pre-production draft has ever been stolen.  The fact that someone or some people couldn’t wait a few months for the book to be published says something about how eager people are to use SG procedures.

Enterprise Guide 5.1

Enterprise Guide 5.1 which is scheduled for release toward the end of this year (after SAS 9.3, not at the same time) uses the same basic layout and menus as EG 4.2 and 4.3. This is good news. Early versions of EG evolved so rapidly, that users were forced to learn an entirely new interface with each new release.  Starting with EG 4.2, the interface has stabilized. It means that this is a good time to learn EG.  If you’ve been waiting on the sidelines wondering when to jump in, it’s time to get your swimsuit.

Las Vegas

I admit I was sceptical about Las Vegas as a location for SGF, but the city of “Lost Wages” turned out to be a fun and classy location for a gathering of SASites (despite the irony of a bunch of statisticians meeting in a gambling capital). I would not be surprised to see SGF return to Las Vegas again.

Semicolon People: The Video

Here we see the real reason why people attend SGF—because it’s so much darn fun.  If you missed it at the conference (as I did), it’s not too late to see the video produced by Greg Nelson and Neil Howard.  Will  next year bring a “Return of the Semicolon People” video?

PowerPoint: A Cautionary Tale

With SGF 2011 fast approaching, I’m sure I’m not the only speaker  hard at work preparing my PowerPoint presentations.  I can remember the old days when speakers brought actual slide trays full of film slides.  I don’t miss the expense of those slides or the amount of room they took in my suitcase, and it is wonderful to be able to fix any typos you may discover at the last minute.  Still PowerPoint has its limitations….

If you haven’t seen Peter Norvig‘s Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation, then you definitely should. It’s not new, but I just recently learned about it from my son.  Click here to see what is possibly the most entertaining PowerPoint presentation ever created.

Susan’s Macro Mottos

With SAS Global Forum less than two months away, I am busy putting the finishing touches on my papers.  One of those papers is SAS Macro Programming for Beginners. Of all the conference papers I have written over the years, this is probably my favorite.  Yet oddly, I have only presented this paper once at SGF and that was long ago.  So I am pleased to have an opportunity to dust this paper off.

Don’t expect a lot of advanced macro tricks here.  This paper is exactly what the title says: macro programming for beginners.  It’s a crystal-clear presentation of the basic concepts you need to understand in order to be comfortable in the company of SAS macros.  I can summarize the paper in two sentences that I call “Susan’s macro mottos.”  Here they are:

Susan’s Macro Mottos

Remember: You are writing a program that writes a program.

This is the most important concept to keep in mind whenever you write or debug SAS macros.  If you feel the least bit confused by a macro, repeating this motto can help you to see what is going on.  I speak from personal experience here. This is my macro mantra.

To avoid mangling your macros, always write them one piece at a time.

First write your program in standard SAS code. When that is working and bug-free, then add your %MACRO and %MEND statements. When they are working, then add your parameters, if any, one at a time.  If you make sure that each macro feature you add is working before you add another one, then debugging will be vastly simplified.

If you are lucky enough to attend SAS Global Forum and you want to catch this presentation, look for me in the Milano V-VI room Tuesday April 5, 2011, 10:30-11:20 am.

Click here to download the paper.

Greatest Hits of 2010

I should have posted this a couple weeks ago, but I’ve been hard at work writing papers for SAS Global Forum (more about that in future posts!).

These were the popular posts and pages on AvocetSolutions.com in 2010.

1) What can I use SAS for?

2) Top 10 Reasons to Use SAS Enterprise Guide

3) SAS Papers, Etc.

4) A SAS Horror Story

5) Highlights of SAS Global Forum

Best Wishes for a Peaceful and Prosperous New Year!

The Truth About What Motivates Us

What motivates you? When I was a kid, I used to play a board game called Careers.  In this game players moved around the board collecting points in three areas: ★ fame , $ fortune, and ♥ happiness. The first player to achieve his chosen combination of points won the game.  It was a fun game, but I used to scratch my head at the idea that success in life could be reduced to a linear formula consisting of fame, fortune, and happiness.  (Yes, even as a ten-year-old, this seemed to me a pretty vacant idea of what life was about.)

When I was in graduate school, I heard about research showing that money can have a seemingly paradoxical effect on people.  Paying people lots of money can actually reduce their motivation rather than increase it.  What I didn’t know is that research on this topic has been ongoing.  Then my son (Elliott Slaughter, Computer Sci. and Eng. major at UCSD and open source developer) sent me the link to a fascinating talk by writer Dan Pink.  His talk is cleverly illustrated by RSA Animate.

So what does this have to do with SAS? Have you ever thought how amazing it is that we have local, regional, and international SAS user group meetings organized and executed primarily by volunteers?  Why are so many people willing to work hundreds of hours without being paid a cent year after year after year?  Pink explains why money is such a poor motivator, and what people really want.  He uses open source software as his example, but you could easily substitute SAS users groups.

Take 10 min. to watch Pink’s video Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.  I think you’ll be glad you did.