Holland Numerics: Blog and Forums

Saving money buying books directly from the publisher and this blog site (updated 22Jul2026)

The book prices shown below were correct at time of writing, but should be verified before purchasing. All books can be purchased using links from this blog site at The Book Table.

Note that Amazon is convenient, but usually more expensive, so you will pay more there, and authors will receive lower royalty payments. It is, of course, your choice, but please support independent authors by buying their books on publisher sites, or directly from their blog sites, and save money at the same time!

Publisher Title Format	Amazon price £	Publisher price £	Blog price £
Out of print
Saving Time and Money Using SAS (2007)
PDF ebook	—	—	7.50
Lulu.com
Power User’s Guide to SAS Programming (2011)
PDF ebook	—	3.75	3.00
Power User’s Guide to SAS Graph Templates (2013)
PDF ebook	—	3.75	3.00
Apress
SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques (2015)
Paperback(b)	48.99	49.99	—
ebook (various)	46.54	39.99	—
Lulu.com
SAS Programming Experiences, 2nd Edition (2025)
Paperback (Amazon 60gsm, Publisher 80gsm)	37.47	23.85	—
PDF ebook	—	7.50	7.00
Altair SLC, 2nd Edition (2025)
Paperback(b) (Amazon 60gsm, Publisher 80gsm)	21.54	14.01	—
PDF ebook	—	5.50	5.00
Advanced Altair SLC, 2026 Edition (2026)
Paperback(b) (Amazon 60gsm, Publisher 80gsm)	—	18.34	—
PDF ebook	—	7.66	6.50(a), 7.00
Altair SLC for Business Users, 2026 Edition (2026)
Paperback(b) (Amazon 60gsm, Publisher 80gsm)	—	18.21	—
PDF ebook	—	7.66	6.50(a), 7.00
Altair SLC for Companies, 2026 Edition (2026)
Paperback(b) (Amazon 60gsm, Publisher 80gsm)	—	15.34	—
PDF ebook	—	—	6.50(a), 7.00

(a) sale price until 31Jul2026

(b) Note that Amazon paperbacks are printed on 60gsm paper to reduce the prices, whereas Publisher paperbacks use 80gsm for higher quality printing. This is a deliberate choice, otherwise Amazon prices would be about 2x Publisher prices if they used 80gsm paper.

VIEWS News 82 (2026Q2/3) has been published!

VIEWS News issue 82 has now been published.

This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9 and Altair SLC. This newsletter issue includes an article from LeRoy Bessler about Donut Charts, Anders Sköllermo discusses quantiles for very large data sets, and there will be a launch of 3 Altair SLC books in Hamburg on 20Aug2026 and you are welcome to join the authors at lunchtime. 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.

Enjoy!……………..Phil

Pablo and I will be enjoying a “book launch” lunch in Hamburg on 20Aug2026. You are very welcome to join us!

Philip R Holland and Pablo Orosco Joerger will be at The Locks, Marienhof 6, 23399 Hamburg, a bar and restaurant in northern Hamburg, Germany, between 1200 and 1600 on 20Aug2026 to talk to interested readers about their 3 new books:

Advanced Altair SLC
Altair SLC for Business Users
Altair SLC for Companies

Volume	Primary audience	Core value proposition
Advanced Altair SLC	Experienced SAS/SLC programmers	Technical depth: PROC R/PROC IML/PROC PYTHON with full programs, ODS gaps, clinical CDISC programming, non‑standard file reading/writing, systematic SLC vs SAS 9.4 differences
Altair SLC for Business Users	SAS programmers and analysts adopting SLC as their primary tool	Broadest practical coverage: batch processing, server access, database access, R/Python, SASjs integration, clinical programming – all with working code
Altair SLC for Companies	IT managers, architects, decision-makers evaluating migration	Business case: cost and capability comparison with SAS 9.4 and Viya, migration planning checklist, database engine coverage, server architecture

All 3 books are available on hollandnumerics.org.uk and Lulu.com as ebooks and paperbacks, if you are unable to join us:

Discounted ebooks will be available to purchase at the venue, either via email or on USB drives.

Discounted paperbacks can also be requested from the authors.

Planning for a new SLC book is on-going, but which graphs should it include?

To map our graph list onto CDISC ADaM structures for the dummy-data examples, here’s what is proposed for each:

Kaplan-Meier survival curves — ADTTE
Forest plots (subgroup / hazard ratio summaries) — ADTTE + ADSL
Waterfall plots (best % change from baseline) — ADTR / ADRS
Spider / spaghetti plots (individual subject profiles) — ADLB / ADVS / ADTR / ADQS
Swimmer plots (treatment duration and response) — ADSL + ADEX + ADRS
Bar charts (AE incidence, demographics, treatment summaries) — ADAE + ADSL
Linear/line plots by treatment (mean response over time) — ADEFF / ADLB / ADVS / ADQS
Mean ± SE/SD over time (labs, vital signs, efficacy, PRO scores) — ADLB / ADVS / ADEFF / ADQS
Box plots and shift plots (labs by visit/treatment) — ADLB
Adverse event incidence and patient-profile timeline plots — ADAE (with ADCM/ADEX for full profiles)
PK concentration-time profiles — ADPC (and ADPP for derived PK parameters)
Linear/Semi-log plots over time (labs, vital signs) — ADLB / ADVS

Can you suggest any other graphs, or graphs in this list that you don’t need?

Pablo Orosco Joerger and I are planning to use the Pharmaverse ADaM data sets for all of these plots.

Please share views in your comments.

3 new Altair SLC paperbacks are now available on Lulu.com.

3 new Altair SLC paperbacks have now been published on Lulu.com:

Advanced Altair SLC
Altair SLC for Business Users
Altair SLC for Companies
For more information about each book please go to STOP PRESS: Altair SLC 2026 series ebooks published on Lulu.com today!

But how do you find them? There are now 3 different links to help you find the paperback books and PDF ebooks you are looking for:

Book Table: where you can find the books and ebooks on Lulu.com, but also the discounted ebooks on this blog site. If you have any problems buying ebooks from the blog site, then please email support@hollandnumerics.org.uk, and we will try to fix the issue as quickly as possible.
Lulu.com Search: where you can find the books and ebooks on Lulu.com about Altair SLC.
Lulu.com Spotlight: where you can find the books and ebooks on Lulu.com by Philip R Holland.

Thank you for supporting independent publishers and authors!

STOP PRESS: Altair SLC 2026 series ebooks published on Lulu.com today!

3 new Altair SLC ebooks in the Altair SLC 2026 series were published on Lulu.com today, and you can order them via the Book Table:

Advanced Altair SLC
- Experienced SAS/SLC programmers
  - Technical depth: PROC R/PROC IML/PROC PYTHON with full programs, ODS gaps, clinical CDISC programming, non-standard file reading/writing, systematic SLC vs SAS 9.4 differences
Altair SLC for Business Users
- SAS programmers and analysts adopting SLC as their primary tool
  - Broadest practical coverage: batch processing, server access, database access, R/Python, SASjs integration, clinical programming – all with working code
Altair SLC for Companies
- IT managers, architects, decision-makers evaluating migration
  - Business case: cost and capability comparison with SAS 9.4 and Viya, migration planning checklist, database engine coverage, server architecture

For more details about the contents of each book, please download the PDF comparison guide Altair_SLC_2026_Three_Book_Comparison.

Apologies to all my loyal blog members, and thank you for your patience over the last few weeks…

Those of you who have tried to access my blog site during May and June experienced a very slow response, or, occasionally, no response at all, throughout the day. I have been investigating potential solutions, including using FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) to speed up the PHP programs. I was close to implementing this solution, but had actually made no changes, when the response times suddenly improved dramatically earlier this week. The performance improvements have been very welcome, but I have no explanation for them yet.

I do still intend to implement FPM, but there is less urgency now.

So, while the blog site is user-friendly again, don’t miss out on the pre-publication discounts on the new Altair SLC ebooks at The Book Table. More details can be found at Download pre-publication copies of my new books at discounted prices.

PS. You may have read that Altair SLC has been rebranded by Siemens as Rapidminer SLC, but this name has yet to appear in the software itself or its documentation, so the book titles will remain the same for now!

Buy 3 new ebooks about Altair SLC directly from this blog site at pre-publication prices

Pablo Orosco Joerger and I have been writing these 3 ebooks about Altair SLC since October 2024, but before we officially publish them we wanted to offer the latest versions for you to buy, read and review at discount prices. As with other ebooks on this blog, any ebooks bought will have any new editions sent directly to you by email when they are published at a later date at no extra charge. We would just like you to read them, and maybe suggest updates and improvements, and write reviews for the blog site and inside the ebooks for the next editions.

Buying ebooks from this blog site requires the buyer to create a blog profile, which includes their email address.
This email address will be used to send them the ebook, but should also be maintained over time so that future editions can be sent out for free. The next edition will be the first officially published edition, which could include your review!

Click on the cover images of each of these books to visit the book pages to find out what they are about, or visit the Book Table:

My paperback books now have permanently lower prices on Lulu.com than on Amazon!

Since November 2025 I have been reducing the prices of my paperbacks on Lulu.com in “odd” months, because I felt that the price hiking used by Amazon and other resellers was unfair to both my readers and me.

I have now found a way to permanently reduce the prices on Lulu.com by creating duplicate book projects, one for resellers only and the other just for Lulu.com. The book contents are identical, but the Lulu.com only versions will be printed on heavier paper (80gsm) and priced lower. The reseller versions will still be printed on 60gsm paper.

Book title	Amazon and other resellers	Lulu.com only
SAS Programming Experiences, 278 pages	60gsm paper, £37.73	80gsm paper, £23.32
Altair SLC, 112 pages	60gsm paper, £21.08	80gsm paper, £13.76

So which version would be the best choice for you?

VIEWS News 81 (2026Q1) has been published!

VIEWS News issue 81 has now been published.

This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9 and Altair SLC. This newsletter issue includes an article from LeRoy Bessler about distorted 3D pie charts, and we welcome a new VIEWS Consultant, Pablo Orosco Joerger, with an article about integrating SAS and R programming languages in Altair SLC. 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.

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.

Enjoy!……………..Phil

Anyone receiving emails from this blog should allow the sender to be phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk

Anyone receiving emails from this blog should allow the sender to be phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk, because I have finally fixed the From field in the blog’s outgoing emails. Previously it would have been From: phil@hollandnumerics.com with Reply-to: phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk. Please check your Spam folders regularly for emails from the new address.

This may seem a trivial change, but it required setting up a new SMTP server. However, this has solved so many awkward workarounds on the blog site. The only restriction will be that the blog will be limited to 200 outgoing emails per day, so I will not be able to guarantee immediate notification by email of new blog posts, because notification emails will have to be spread over several days.

Let us see how successful this change will be, and please let me know if you experience any issues.

………..Phil

March’s paperback 30% discounts on Lulu.com will expire on 30 March

Please do not buy these paperbacks from resellers now they have become available, like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., as the resellers over-inflate their prices, but wait for discounted prices for the paperbacks on Lulu.com between the 1st and 30th day of “odd” months (Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep and Nov), or download the equivalent ebooks instead (always discounted) from the Book Table, which is where the lowest prices for my paperbacks and ebooks can always be found.

More details can be found at 2nd Edition paperbacks now have 30% discounts on Lulu.com in “odd” months.

You may ask why I am discounting the book prices. I consider the discounted paperbacks on Lulu.com and discounted downloads on this site to be a win-win: you pay a much lower price than on Amazon and I get a higher royalty payment!!

Please support your independent authors and publishers! Thank you.