Hemedinger Chris - SAS For Dummies

SAS For Dummies, 2nd Edition

by Stephen McDaniel and Chris Hemedinger

SAS For Dummies, 2nd Edition

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Copyright 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010922564

ISBN: 978-0-470-53968-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Authors

Stephen McDaniel has 20 years of experience as a teacher, a consultant, a leader, an innovator, and an author in the fields of visual analytics, business intelligence, data warehousing, and data mining. Stephen is the author of Rapid Graphs with Tableau Software and is the cofounder of Freakalytics, LLC. Freakalytics offers public training, on-site training, and expert consulting that delivers Rapid Analytics to Explore, Understand, Communicate & Act.

Previously, Stephen was the senior manager in charge of the SAS Enterprise Guide development team and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office development team at SAS. Stephen has been a SAS user for more than 20 years and has experience with more than 50 organizations as a statistician, statistical programmer, product manager, and manager of data warehousing and business intelligence. You can reach him at www.Freakalytics.com.

Chris Hemedinger is a senior software manager in the Research and Development division of SAS. Chris began his career at SAS in 1993 as a technical writer, creating such hits as SAS Companion for the OS/2 Environment (remember OS/2?) and SAS Companion for the Microsoft Windows Environment . In 1997, he became involved in a prototype project to make SAS easier to use for nonprogrammers, and that project evolved into the hugely popular SAS Enterprise Guide, a product that Chris has worked with ever since. Chris can be found performing entertaining SAS tricks at blogs.sas.com/sasdummy.

Dedication

I want to thank my wonderful wife and business partner, Eileen, for her patience, support, insights, and encouragement throughout the writing process!Stephen McDaniel

For my beautiful (and patient) wife, Gail, and our inquisitive three daughters: Maggie, Evelyn, and Gwen. Listen up, girls: Despite what you hear from me, its usually not polite to call somebody a dummy.Chris Hemedinger

Authors Acknowledgments

The first edition of SAS For Dummies took years to assemble, even with the help of dozens of people. It proved popular beyond our wildest expectations. With such momentum, you might think that this second edition would be a piece of cake and practically write itself. Think again.

We, the humble authors, could not have planned and completed this book without the tremendous help of our editors at Wiley and at SAS Press. From Wiley, we relied on Jodi Jensen and Katie Feltman for their coordination and Susan Pink for her thoughtful editing. At SAS Press, Stacey Hamilton served as our acquisitions editor, with help and guidance from Stephenie Joyner and Julie Platt.

Especially for this second edition, we had great technical and content feedback from our panel of reviewers: Marilyn Adams, Marie Dexter, and Jennifer Tamburro at SAS and Eileen McDaniel at Freakalytics.

Publishers Acknowledgments

Were proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions and Editorial

Project Editor: Susan Pink

Acquisitions Editor: Katie Feltman

Copy Editor: Susan Pink

Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Graham

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond

Layout and Graphics: Yovonne Grego, Joyce Haughey, Christine Williams

Proofreader: Shannon Ramsey

Indexer: Steve Rath

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley , Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings , Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek , Executive Acquisitions Director