2nd Edition ebook versions of my 2024 books, “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC”, have been published today on Lulu.com and my blog site. Paperback versions will be published shortly on Lulu.com and for global distribution (including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.).
The Second Edition of each book now includes information about both the 2024 and 2025 releases of Altair SLC.
Did you download the First Edition ebook from my blog site? If you did, then please find your confirmation email for that ebook, because the download link will now download the Second Edition at no extra cost!!
This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9 and Altair SLC. This issue is another one that has been delayed, but this time due to software issues on my blog server, which have now been resolved. This newsletter issue includes an InfoGeographic map from LeRoy Bessler, and I have discovered an AI assistant that seems to write working SAS programs. 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.
To me retirement only means not earning a salary from my SAS programming, which will, from now on, become a pure hobby. I will also be concentrating on programming using Altair Analytics Workbench and Altair SLC, rather than using SAS Software.
However, there are still ways for everyone to get SAS Value from my 40+ years of SAS programming:
No.1 = 1/2 day SAS training, including digital training materials, for GBP 1,800
No.5 = 1 ebook copy of course notes to one of my SAS courses from around GBP 11
My SAS course notes are published as ebooks on Lulu.com, who, unlike Amazon, etc., do not take massive commissions, so I receive most of the published price.
More books and ebooks about Altair SLC are currently being developed.
No.9 = 1 copy of one of my SAS softback books from a reseller from around GBP 25
Although these options appear to be lower in the list than expected, I receive very little from softback books sold, because I received an advance when they were published.
More books about Altair SLC are currently being developed.
No.10 = 1 copy of one of my SAS ebooks from a reseller from around GBP 3
Although these options appear to be lower in the list than expected, I receive very little from ebooks sold by resellers, because I received an advance when they were published.
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.
Altair SLC: The SAS Language Compiler (paperback) – 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:
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.
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:
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:
This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9. This newsletter issue includes a macro that makes controlling graph text characteristics easy from LeRoy Bessler, Richard Carson completes his discussion about configuring of SAS processes without editing them in the sixth part of a series of articles about KT, and I have to admit that I delayed the publication of this newsletter to tell you about my 2 new books, which were finally published on 21Jun2024 (see https://hollandnumerics.org.uk/book-table/). 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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.