There will be a scheduled downtime of the blog site on Thursday 13 February 2025 while the broadband connection is upgraded to full fibre. The upgrade work is due to take place between 0800hr and 1300hr (GMT), but the downtime may extend beyond this period to allow for any amendments to server connections that are also needed.
A message will be sent to Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon and blog members as soon as the site is fully available after the downtime.
There are a number of SAS-related jobs in the SAS Jobs Listing this month in the UK, Europe, India and Philippines and the links are open to all site visitors:
Country
Jobs Advertised
From Company
Europe
Pharmaceutical contract positions
ClinChoice
Europe
Pharmaceutical permanent positions
ClinChoice
UK
Pharmaceutical contract positions
ClinChoice
UK
Pharmaceutical permanent positions
ClinChoice
Philippines
Pharmaceutical permanent positions
ClinChoice
India
Pharmaceutical permanent positions
ClinChoice
Please use the links in the SAS Jobs Listing to apply for these positions. All recruiters have contact details and links to their web sites on each job post.
Recruiters looking for candidates
I’m always looking for new recruiters to post SAS-related jobs on this site covering India, UK, the Americas (particularly USA), Europe and the Rest of the World.
If you have a regular supply of SAS jobs in any of these regions, then there is a free trial which is open to all recruiters, but with 2 simple rules:
The free trial will be extended by an additional calendar month only when a job is posted, and will expire automatically if no job has been posted in a calendar month.
The posted jobs must be in some way SAS-related.
Please register for Free membership, and then send your jobs to phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk before 05Feb2025 to be included in this post next month! You will be manually upgraded to a Recruiter member if you’ve never taken part in this free trial before.
The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:
I am researching for 3 new Altair SLC books to add to my recently published book about Altair SLC. They will look into a range of aspects and programming using full licences, unlike my previous book that concentrated on the free Community Edition (now called the Personal Edition), and also more advanced aspects available in the Personal Edition, but not included in my previous book, such as Workflows, clinical data analysis and ODBC database connections.
What information would you like to read more about in the new books?
I have already been trying out the Communicate and Link features of Altair SLC, and hope to extend this to the Hub very soon.
The book concentrates on Altair SLC, looking at the pros and cons of using Altair SLC to develop SAS programs. Code samples are provided throughout this book, so you can learn more about Altair SLC and SAS programming by following these examples.
Topics included:
What is Altair SLC?
Introduction to Altair Analytics Workbench
Altair SLC for Clinical Trials
Generating Graphics with Altair SLC
Using Altair SLC with R and Python
Download for free the SAS programs in this book from here.
The book concentrates on Altair SLC, looking at the pros and cons of using Altair SLC to develop SAS programs. Code samples are provided throughout this book, so you can learn more about Altair SLC and SAS programming by following these examples.
Topics included:
Phil has used SAS on all of the platforms, mainframe, UNIX, and Windows. If Mac was a platform, Phil would take you as reader there, too. He takes you to Altair SLC, R, and Python, where you can be a user of the SAS language, and those two ever more popular adjuncts to SAS, without the expense of a SAS licence, and clarifies the differences between SAS Software and Altair SLC. The book includes a graphics capabilities tour with the various tools in its scope. Nowhere else available is the chapter devoted to Altair SLC for Clinical Trials, which is like a book-guided Hands-On Workshop self-help get-acquainted tutorial. The book will take you to places that nobody else would take you. Explore it and explore SAS.
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
Altair SLC: The SAS Language Compiler (PDF) – Second Edition
The book concentrates on Altair SLC, looking at the pros and cons of using Altair SLC to develop SAS programs. Code samples are provided throughout this book, so you can learn more about Altair SLC and SAS programming by following these examples.
Topics included:
What is Altair SLC?
Introduction to Altair Analytics Workbench
Altair SLC for Clinical Trials
Generating Graphics with Altair SLC
Using Altair SLC with R and Python
Download for free the SAS programs in this book from here.
The book concentrates on Altair SLC, looking at the pros and cons of using Altair SLC to develop SAS programs. Code samples are provided throughout this book, so you can learn more about Altair SLC and SAS programming by following these examples.
Topics included:
What is Altair SLC?
Introduction to Altair Analytics Workbench
Altair SLC for Clinical Trials
Generating Graphics with Altair SLC
Using Altair SLC with R and Python
Download for free the SAS programs in this book from here.
Phil has used SAS on all of the platforms, mainframe, UNIX, and Windows. If Mac was a platform, Phil would take you as reader there, too. He takes you to Altair SLC, R, and Python, where you can be a user of the SAS language, and those two ever more popular adjuncts to SAS, without the expense of a SAS licence, and clarifies the differences between SAS Software and Altair SLC. The book includes a graphics capabilities tour with the various tools in its scope. Nowhere else available is the chapter devoted to Altair SLC for Clinical Trials, which is like a book-guided Hands-On Workshop self-help get-acquainted tutorial. The book will take you to places that nobody else would take you. Explore it and explore SAS.
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
I have always wanted to create a neural network using the SAS language from the moment it was announced, but SAS software restricted this feature to paid-for components that I had no other use for. However, using features available in the free Personal Edition of Altair SLC and Altair Analytics Workbench, I have created a neural network to analyse the Iris data set, which uses PROC MLP, but I created it using pre-built nodes for a Workflow in Analytics Workbench.
I have just watched a video demo from an Altair Employee on the Altair Community site about importing EG project files into Analytics Workbench Workflows. No version numbers were mentioned in or around this video, but it appears to be possible now, or at least soon!
For business users the Linux installation of Altair SLC is treated as a server, rather than a workstation, installation. However, when I installed it I thought that the only way to access it would be as a server from a Windows-installed Analytics Workbench, but there is also a Linux version of Analytics Workbench available to business users, and it looks just like the Windows version.
More reasons to consider migrating from Foundation SAS to Altair SLC!
Keep your eyes open for more books about Altair SLC coming soon…
Several years ago I wrote a conference paper about reading non‑standard spreadsheet files called “Help, I’ve Received a Spreadsheet File from StarOffice Calc…..!”, which explained how to extract the XML from a StarOffice Calc file, and then convert that XML into a SAS data set.
OpenDocument spreadsheet files can now be read with both Microsoft Office and LibreOffice (my preferred office suite), but a SAS program still has no way to read this file format directly.
I have now published a SAS program, which works in SAS Software and Altair SLC, to extract all of the individual XML sheets from an OpenDocument spreadsheet into their own SAS data sets. See the “SAS Hints and Tips” chapter in “SAS Programming Experiences: A How-To Guide from a Power SAS User” (both in paperback or PDF formats) for details about this SAS program.
This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9 and Altair SLC. This issue has been delayed, because I under-estimated how much effort organising my significant birthday celebrations would take!. It will, therefore, cover Q3 and Q4 of 2024. This newsletter issue includes a macro that everybody needs to know for categorical data with a group variable from LeRoy Bessler, and Richard Carson gives us 2 useful tips. As usual I have publicised some SAS-related events for the next few months, and I have also added some more SAS formats, options and functions that you may or may not have come across before, but you might find interesting, and even useful.
If you would like to contribute an article, to re-visit and improve an existing article, or just discuss the possibility of doing so, please feel free to send an email to me at view-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk or phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk. Publication deadlines are the 14th day of February, May, August and November each year.
To be able to read this and all previous issues you will need to follow these steps:
If you have not already registered on this blog site, go to blog.hollandnumerics.org.uk and register for free membership.
Once successfully registered, click the menu item [Subscriptions for Forums and Features] > [Request access to the VIEWS UK forum] to request free access to the VIEWS UK forum, then add your name and email address to the form before clicking [Send].
On receipt of a request for an existing blog member I will register them for free access to the VIEWS UK forum, and then send them an email to confirm this.
The next time they log onto the blog site they will see VIEWS UK in the forum list, where you will find the latest issue of VIEWS News, forum topics to find the backissues, functions and formats in every published issue, and a tag cloud covering every forum on the site to which you have access, including VIEWS UK and the VIEWS News issues.
They will also be automatically informed of any VIEWS UK updates.
2024Q3 included my 70th birthday, so I hope you can forgive me for being a bit late with VIEWS News 77. I am hoping VIEWS News 77 will be worth the wait.
For those of you that are ageist, I am not old, I am just experienced!! Also, as I am not retired (yet), my working life does get in the way too!
My current plan is to publish VIEWS News 77 in the next 2 weeks.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, replied in time to my celebration post with suggestions for discounted prices for my “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC” ebooks, so I will not be able to reduce their prices in September.
However, I will reduce my ebook prices for 3 days in October instead!
From 2-4 October 2024 the ebook download prices will be reduced, and downloading these ebooks from this site will also allow you to freely download them again when a new edition is published:
Over recent weeks I have been retiring my ebook apps from Google Play and Chrome Web Store (with Amazon Appstore apps due to be retired later this year) and updating the app links in my ebook web apps on this site. This will mean that you will always see the latest information in the app here, and they will be available on all platforms that support web browsing.
There are still a few content updates to do, like replacing SAS University Edition with SAS On-Demand for Academics, and adding more information about Altair SLC, but they will be made over time, along with other updates and new web apps.
Features of the web apps on this site:
Drop-down contents list.
Adjustable font size and text flow to fit the browser window with [A-] and [A+] buttons.
Page up [Pg+] and down [Pg-] buttons.
Emails generated from clickable code fragments.
Ask a new question [Ask?] button to generate emails with suggestions.
Some apps include an index too.
I realise that there are still some app users out there who will feel abandoned, so, for those who have never subscribed to the SAS Programming Forum, register for Free membership of this blog, email a screenshot of your app to sales@hollandnumerics.org.uk (or use the app’s [Ask?] button) and I will give you a month’s free access to the SAS Programming Forum and to the ebook web apps as a thank you for your support.
When you have logged into the blog, you will see menu items for the web apps based on your membership.
Warning: the apps themselves are restricted to only work when opened from these web lists, so adding the individual apps to your browser favourites will not be helpful!
The discounted prices will be the median of the first 25 different prices you post in GBP, but there can be no duplicates and no prices less than the specified minimum values!! Those that reply correctly will be informed about which 3 days in September will have these prices, but, if there are less than 25 replies, no prices will be changed. After these 3 days the prices will return to the Lulu and download prices below.
Posts must be made on this blog site, and not in LinkedIn, X or Mastodon, and you will need to have registered for Free membership, and logged onto the blog, to post your price!
ebooks sold on reseller sites often have unnecessary price mark-ups, so I prefer to provide ebook downloads directly from my blog site at reduced prices, where I get more income too, so it is a win-win situation for author and reader! Plus, there are 3 downloads allowed, so new editions can be downloaded later.
Note that all paperbacks that can be ordered from Lulu support this open-source publisher, and give the maximum income to the author. Paperback resellers, rather than publishers, like Amazon and Apple Books, are only really interested in their profits, so authors often get short-changed!
The following books written by Philip R Holland are available through this blog site. Click the price links for more information:
Today I requested the removal of my Google Play and Chrome Webstore apps from their web catalogues, and their links have been removed from my blog site too. Existing installations should continue to work, until their platforms eventually change to make them incompatible, and, unfortunately, some apps have already been removed due to incompatibilities.
If you want to continue using similar apps, what can you do now?
The content in SAS course apps can be found in the SAS course in the SAS Professional Forum. Programming and Recruiting members who can access to the SAS Programming Forum will also have access to Informational web apps and LMS courses that also contain the SAS course content. There are also some sample web apps for Free members.
The major benefit of web apps is that the content will always be current, so updates and corrections can be accessed once completed without any user actions.
Amazon Appstore apps may still be accessed by Windows 11 users until late-2024, but Amazon-compatible Android apps can still be downloaded from this site to sideload into Amazon Appstore in Ubuntu on Windows (until late-2024) and also on Android platforms that have been setup to allow sideloading.
