2nd Edition paperback book versions of my 2024 books, “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC”, have been published today on Lulu.com. They will also be available shortly 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, and have been reviewed by Altair specialists.
Please note that the paperback book prices are now 100% higher than for the 1st Editions, because Amazon and other resellers charge much higher distribution fees. Prices of the ebooks are unchanged for the 2nd Editions. However, I will endeavour to apply discounted prices regularly on Lulu.com and this blog, which will be advertised on the Book Table web page.
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.
Yes, I am retiring from paid contracts on 31Mar2025, and my company (Holland Numerics Ltd) will be closed in a few months time.
However, retiring will never be as stressful as the blog server downtime (now resolved!) I experienced this weekend! I have been trying to create a “low maintenance” environment for my blog and ancillary activities, and I want to leave my blog members and clients still able to:
As Programmer and Recruiter members you can post programming questions (including interview questions) in the paid-for SAS Programming Forum, which includes the SAS course.
You can ask single, or subscribe monthly for unlimited, commercially-sensitive questions in the paid-for Premium SAS help desk service.
All this will continue, but will be supported by just myself, and not my company, after my retirement.
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.
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.
Until the paperback versions are published on Lulu.com, the PDF ebooks downloaded from my blog site will be discounted, but prices will be adjusted as soon as the paperbacks have been published. This will probably be in early July 2024, after the physical printed proofs have been approved.
On my way to spend a week on a Great Lakes cruise with my wife from Thursday 27 June 2024, I will be spending a day with LeRoy Bessler in Milwaukee on Wednesday 26 June 2024. We enjoy talking about SAS programming and books, so we will be meeting for an informal lunch in the Lobby Lounge at the Pfister Hotel around 12 midday, and if you would like to join us, then you will be very welcome.
Note that we do need to know whether you will be able to join us, not to order your lunch, as attendees will be expected to buy their own lunches, but to make sure the Lobby Lounge can accommodate everyone expected! Therefore, please email me at books@hollandnumerics.org.uk to confirm your attendance as soon as you can. If a change of venue is necessary, then everyone who has confirmed will be informed in advance, so you will not miss out.
LeRoy published his first book, “Visual Data Insights Using SAS ODS Graphics: A Guide to Communication-Effective Data Visualization”, in 2023, which concentrates on how to create graphs using ODS Graphics to communicate data.
I am desperately trying to publish my new book, “SAS Programming Experiences: A How-To Guide from a Power SAS User”, in time for this lunch, so it can be the official book launch event! I will confirm if this is going to happen closer to the lunch date, and confirmation will mean that my book will be available at a discounted launch price. LeRoy’s book and all of my published books can be bought through my blog site at the Book Table now.
I have been SAS programming for over 40 years, so this book (originally written to be my memoirs!) has 3 distinct sections:
SAS programming methods to make your programs easier to maintain. I like to write my SAS programs where they will cope nicely with any data!!
SAS programming interfaces to improve your programming environment, focusing on how SAS installs and editors have evolved over 40 years, Enterprise Guide, SAS Studio and ODS Graphics.
SAS alternatives, where I compare SAS software with Altair SLC, including how Altair SLC can create graphics and interface to open-source languages like R and Python.
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