Holland Numerics: Blog and Forums

sasCommunity.org is winding down from January 2018

I’ve been posting on sasCommunity.org every now and then for nearly 10 years, including hosting VIEWS News and my SAS Author pages there, but a decision has now been made by the sasCommunity Advisory Team to set the site to Read-Only from 01Jan2018. Chris Hemedinger has added a blog post on The SAS Dummy giving a little more information on where the sasCommunity.org content could be relocated.

Note that the VIEWS News issues can now be accessed on this blog site in the VIEWS UK forum, which is a free resource for all registered blog members, but an access request is required after you have registered.

The wiki site was the first to be SAS-related and user-maintained, so that every registered SAS user could add and update their own content. This was long before GitHub appeared, and when LinkedIn and the SAS Communities had barely started.

I think I will leave the last words to the sasCommunity Advisory Team, who posted this announcement on the sasCommunity.org site on 07Dec2017:

sasCommunity.org to be Decommissioned

December 7, 2017
Notice from the sasCommunity Advisory Team

Today, SAS practitioners have unprecedented access to expertise from their fellow SAS users around the world. Using modern community forums and code sharing platforms, SAS users are learning from each other more than ever before.

Although there is a demonstrated increased interest in SAS topics in general, we’ve seen the traffic and contributions on sasCommunity.org remain flat (and even decline) over the past few years. The team has taken the decision to help users to focus on the newer, well-supported platforms — and decommission this wiki-based site.

Before we cover some logistics, we want to recognize the important role that sasCommunity.org – and all of its volunteers and contributors – has served over the past 10 years. The site pioneered peer-to-peer collaboration around SAS during an era when there were fewer alternatives. We are grateful to those who devoted countless hours to building and nurturing the site. Thank you!

Now…on to the future. Our first step will be to put the site into ‘Read Only Mode’ on January 1, 2018. This will allow the relocation of important and popular content responsibly, while eliminating the overhead of accepting new pages. We plan to support, as best we can, the owners of existing content to make sure they can find a new home for content and articles they want to preserve before the final decommissioning (that date is TBD).

Examples of content that we know that probably should be relocated:

Author Pages

User Groups pages

Historical Conference Proceedings

sasCommunity.org Planet (blogs aggregator)

Several unique and very popular articles

Some of this content may be relocated to the SAS Support Communities (communities.sas.com) with the help of SAS Institute. Historical proceedings might find a home alongside the other proceedings we have for more recent SAS conferences. Code-based projects may be a better fit on GitHub, a site designed specifically for sharing code related to any technology. All ideas are under discussion, and we welcome your input.

Thanks for your valuable support over the years, and we look forward to continued collaboration!

The SAS Programming Forum is growing again with 8 new SAS course topics

The SAS course and the SAS Programming Forum continue to grow, I have just added 8 new course topics about PROC SQL, and there are now 33 topics in 4 different sections:

[A] SAS components – 2 topics
Data Steps – 13 topics
[F] PROC SQL – 14 topics (8 new topics!)
[G] Macros – 4 topics

The SAS course topics themselves are in the SAS Programming Forum, which can only be accessed by Programmer level members, but Free members can read the SAS course – Home page and see the individual topic names.

More topics and sections are being developed, so register for free now to be kept up-to-date about all of the news, so you can take advantage of the Programmer level when it suits you best!

Are you dreaming of an Android Christmas?

Most of you will know that I have been a SAS programmer for over 30 years, but I also use other programming languages too. The first language I learnt was FORTRAN IV while I was an undergraduate at the University of York, with which I wrote the mark-up language that I used to format my thesis, and I also played with BASIC while I was at university. More recently I have developed functionality for my web sites in JavaScript, Java and Perl, and created Enterprise Guide Add-ins in VB.Net.

However, when I bought my first smartphone, a Palm Pre, in 2010, I discovered that I could write my own apps for its operating system webOS in JavaScript, and joining the webOS developer group was free. This gave me my first experience of selling apps for smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately webOS did not survive very long after HP bought Palm, so I branched out into writing apps in JavaScript for Chrome browsers, and for Android devices in Java. Now even the Chrome Web Store is no longer accepting new or updated apps, so I am left with just developing for Android devices.

My core Android apps are a series of what I call ebook apps focusing on SAS programming. They were originally developed in JavaScript for webOS, but have ported fairly well to Java, and each contains a collection of rich text “ebook” pages that display automatically scaled and formatted text and images to match your own device dimensions and orientation. You can also email out the code samples and ask new questions for future releases. The Google Play and Amazon Appstore functionality to update installed versions of these apps means that any new or updated pages are automatically sent to existing app users.

Every now and then I get “bright” ideas for games and educational apps. A number of my existing Chrome browser apps are about improving mental arithmetic, which I see as becoming a lost skill. There are 3 apps available in the Chrome Web Store called Arithmetic Brain Quest, Multiply Brain Quest and Fraction Brain Quest. Each game randomly generates 10 questions in the different categories, which must be answered correctly in the allotted to build a pile of blocks to reach the top of the screen, with a high score saved for each category.

There are also some Android puzzle solver and game apps which can be downloaded directly from my blog site, because the Google Play and Amazon Appstore functionality is not required when these apps are in their final versions. The puzzle solver apps are to help you develop or solve puzzles you may see in newspapers, magazines and on-line for Sudoku 6×6, Sujiko and Master Sujiko.

My most recent game apps are based on a board game created by Tri-Ang in 1970 called Check-Lines. The board had 11 holes joined by straight lines, and 2 players had 5 pieces each with the aim of placing them to form 2 straight lines of 3 pieces each, so 1 piece was part of both lines like an X, L, V or T. The game starts with an empty board and the players take turns to place their pieces in empty holes, and then, when all the pieces are on the board, moving one of their pieces along a straight line into the empty hole until 2 lines are created, or no move is possible. I have created 2 apps, one is a free “dumb” app Check-Lines Board which just enforces the rules, and the other app Play Check-Lines uses a simple AI to provide the 2nd player with hints, as shown in the screenshot.

Whatever you are doing at this time of the year I would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

I hope I’ve updated the site theme to make your reading and navigation easier

The previously installed theme was called “Twenty Sixteen”, which I published on the site in May 2016, so I thought it was time to change to a new theme, which is called “LeftSide”.

What do you think of it? I do like the navigation panel, which doesn’t get in the way and requires no scrolling to start reading the text, but I’m not so enthusiastic about the pink links, so you may find they change colour in the future, if I can work out how to update them to a more standard blue.

Maybe my last report from a PhUSE event: Beerse Single Day Event 2017

Last month I talked about the presentation “The Art of Defensive Programming – Coping with Unseen Data” I was doing at the PhUSE Single Day Event (SDE) in Beerse, Belgium. The event was held yesterday on 28 November 2017 at the Janssen EMEA site, where I’d started my SAS contracting activities 25 years earlier. This was the 6th SDE I’d presented at in Belgium, and the 3rd on this site, so I was fairly familiar with the venue and knew many of the attendees too.

As at recent conference events I included a free draw for a copy of my latest book “SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques“. The attendance at the SDE was around 80 and not just coming from Belgium, with 21 of those entered the draw, and the winner was Lieke Gijsbers from OCS Consulting in the Netherlands (see me presenting her with my book in the photo).

You are probably now asking why this will be my last report from a PhUSE event? Over the last year or so I have reviewed the benefits I get from presenting at conferences and how much it costs me to attend them. Consultants spend a lot of time doing Cost-Benefit analyses and PhUSE events seemed to be moving lower down the list. The larger companies can easily afford to send multiple delegates, but a small percentage of their staff, to PhUSE events because of economies of scale. Unfortunately, Holland Numerics is not a large company, so we have to send 100% of our staff (me!). By presenting we get a 33% reduction on the full conference fee, but we lose 100% of our income during the conference and SDE days, and the same is true for every other independent consultant attending PhUSE. Next year I was hoping to combine some of my training courses with PhUSE SDE and PhUSE Connect (the new name for the annual conference!) events, but none had come to fruition.

I am extremely happy with the records I have created as a mere SAS programmer (and not a Statistical Programmer!) during my membership of PhUSE:

I have attended 13 consecutive PhUSE annual conferences since the first was held in Heidelberg in 2005.
I have presented at least 1 paper in every PhUSE annual conference I have attended, including several papers I had brought with me “just in case” to fill in for short-notice withdrawals.
I have presented in 18 SDEs since they started in 2008, including 6 in Belgium, 4 in the UK, 3 in Germany, 2 in Switzerland and Denmark, and 1 in the Netherlands.
Since the PhUSE annual conference was held in Basel in 2009, I have held a beer-tasting evening near to the conference. That is a total of 9 beer-tasting evenings! It started because I wanted to taste the local beers, I preferred to drink beer with friends, and it seemed to work out just fine, because I had no complaints, and I added many new beers to my beer-tasting database. In fact I had to stop Yvonne Moores, the 2011 Brighton conference chair, from putting a note in the daily conference news, and it was still over-subscribed using just word-of-mouth! The largest evening attendance was actually 24 in Budapest, when, unable to find a Hungarian beer establishment, I opted instead for the “Belgian Abbey Restaurant”!
Last, but not least, no-one has enjoyed PhUSE events more than me!

I would like to thank PhUSE for allowing me to present my SAS-related papers at their conferences and SDEs, but I will not be renewing my membership of the PhUSE Society as usual in January.

Are you interested in SAS macros or SAS efficiency? I’ve updated both apps in Google Play and Amazon Appstore

Are you interested in SAS macros or SAS programming efficiency? I’ve updated my Android apps focusing on both these topics in Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

Poll: How does your company create graphs?

ODS Graphics has been around since SAS 9.1.3 (in 2006!), and yet it hasn’t yet taken over the SAS graphics world, even though it could create the vast majority of graphs.

With this in mind I thought I’d create a quick poll to see what is currently being used out there in the real world:

[poll id=’3′]

If you think your company ought to be using ODS Graphics more, then download our SAS training course list for free.

If you would like to learn about ODS Graphics yourself, even if your company doesn’t want to pay for a training course for you and your colleagues, then you should read “Part III: Data Visualization” (chapters 9-14) in my book “SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide” instead.

Are you going to the PhUSE Belgium SDE (Single Day Event) in Beerse? I’m presenting there!

The PhUSE Belgium SDE is being held at Janssen Pharmaceutica near Beerse again on Tuesday 28th November 2017, where I’ll be presenting “The Art of Defensive Programming – Coping with Unseen Data” at 1600hr.

I hoping to be able to run a free prize draw there for you to win a copy of my recent book “SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide“. Just drop in a business card or fill out a blank card at the event to get a chance to win a copy.

I’m looking forward to revisiting the site where I worked on my very first SAS contract in 1992, and maybe tasting some interesting Belgian beers too!

Hope to see you there.

Are you going to SAS Global Forum in Denver? I’m presenting there!

SAS Global Forum is being held in Denver in 2018 from Sunday 8th to Wednesday 11th April, and I’ve been invited to present “The Art of Defensive Programming: Coping with Unseen Data” there.

I’m also hoping to run another prize draw again for you to win a copy of my latest book “SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide“. Just drop in a business card or fill out a blank card at the ODS Graphics stand to get a chance to win a copy.

Note, however, that at SASGF18 you will only be able to read a copy of the book contents at the stand, as during SASGF17 someone took away my well-used sample copy. So, if you still want to browse the sample, then you’ll have to find me among the expected 5,000+ attendees! 🙁

Hope to see you there.

What happened in Edinburgh?

This year the PhUSE Conference was held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, and in Scotland for the first time. This was my 13th PhUSE Conference, and I’d presented papers at all 13, which was more than anyone else! There were 695 attendees and 40 exhibitors at this PhUSE conference, more than at any previous PhUSE conference too!

I presented “Making Graphs Easier to Validate – The Benefits of ODS Graphics” in the Data Visualisation stream on the 1st afternoon, and the room was nearly full, which I found to be true for most of the other papers I attended during the rest of the conference too. It is always good to present to a full room, because you are more likely to get an audience response to what you are trying to explain.

CK Clinical had one of the exhibitors stands and ran a Connect4 knock-out competition over the 3 days, with the champion Kriss Harris winning Afternoon Tea for two at the Ritz (or equivalent), and runner-up Gareth Parry (see photo on right) winning a copy of my latest book “SAS Programming and Data Visualisation Techniques“.

In 2018 the European PhUSE Conference will be held in Frankfurt, the 3rd time in Germany, but in November, rather than the traditional October, because a new US PhUSE Conference will be taking place in Raleigh NC in June.

There is a new SAS Training Course list for 2017Q4

There is now a new Training Course list for 2017Q4, which can be downloaded from here. The courses available in 2016 and early 2017 are still there, but had added a new course to the list:

½ day Defensive SAS Programming training

I’m also developing some new SAS-related courses, based on the SAS course, which you can accelerate to production status by requesting them:

½ day SAS Data Step training
½ day SAS PROC SQL training
½ day SAS macros training

Your interest in any of these courses will result in them being developed as priority tasks!

Are you going to PhUSE in Edinburgh? I’m presenting there!

PhUSE is being held in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) in Edinburgh this year from Sunday 8th to Wednesday 11th October 2017, and I’ll be presenting “Making Graphs Easier to Validate – The Benefits of ODS Graphics” in the Data Visualization stream on the Monday afternoon at 1500hr.

PhUSE is now a global conference for the pharmaceutical software community, and there will be 600+ attendees in the following streams:
– Analytics & Statistics
– Application Development
– Coding Tips & Tricks
– Data Standards & Governance
– Data Handling
– Data Visualisation
– Industry Starters
– Management
– Professional Development & Training
– Posters
– Regulatory
– Real-world Evidence
– Software Demonstrations
– Standards Implementation
– Trends & Technology
– Hands-on Workshops
– University Day

CK Clinical will be running a competition (I think it will be Connect4), and one of the prizes will be a copy of my recent book “SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide”. Visit Stand 37 in the Exhibitors Area to get a chance to win a copy.

I’m also planning my annual beer-tasting evening on the Tuesday during the conference at a local venue. Unfortunately attendance will be limited to the first 20 attendees to confirm interest with me at the conference itself, so talk to me early if you’d like to attend!

Hope to see you there.