August 31, 2012
The world is more connected than ever before, and this affects the way computer programmers obtain data and deliver their results. The era of computer tapes and voluminous reports printed on green-bar paper is past. Programmers now are more likely to work on data collected in spreadsheet files, then deliver their results as a web page.
The book Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts has had to change to reflect these and other changes in the world. The new third edition has new coverage of Internet and desktop file formats, such as web pages and spreadsheets. The new topics will help SAS programmers in the corporate world keep up with an increasingly complex mix of technology.
The third edition of Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts, available in August 2012 from Breakfast Books, is updated to cover new SAS features introduced since the second edition. The newest SAS features focus especially on the ability to deliver results in a wide range of electronic formats using SAS’s Output Delivery System, or ODS.
The new emphasis on electronic documents and a paper-free workflow means that XML and character encodings more important than ever. SAS has introduced many new features for XML in recent releases, and it has improved its support for the UTF-8 Unicode character set usually required for XML workflows. XML has also become important in SAS as a way to transfer SAS data between computers. Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts catches up with this trend in the third edition with two new chapters specifically about XML.
Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts was originally released in 2002 and quickly became a favorite among SAS programmers. It has become widely used as a college textbook because it covers so many essential topics important to SAS programmers, in a lightweight writing style easily accessible to students and beginning programmers. The book is used in courses that introduce numerical methods in scientific fields such as sociology, criminology, and epidemiology.
Recognizing the importance of the book in college courses, the author and publisher rushed to prepare the new edition in time for fall courses that begin in August.
SAS is business intelligence software published by SAS Institute Inc. of Cary, NC, and used by an estimated 3 million people worldwide.
Rick Aster has been writing books on SAS programming since 1988. His other books include Professional SAS Programmer’s Pocket Reference and Professional SAS Programming Secrets.
Breakfast computer books: http://www.breakfast.us/computer/
Breakfast catalog page for Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts: http://www.breakfast.us/catalog/professional-sas-programming-shortcuts.html
Rick Aster: http://www.globalstatements.com
SAS is a registered trademark of SAS Institute Inc. Breakfast is a registered trademark of Breakfast Communications Corporation.