Talk:SAS (software)/Archive 1

Incorrect usage of conditional expressions

In the sections on "Example SAS code", there is a discussion which starts,

"The SAS Macro Language enables such features as conditional execution of SAS language components..."

...and then proceeds to show examples of code that concerns macro substitution and expansion, not conditional code. There is no decision being made in the examples as to whether certain code will run or not, and therefore it's definitely not conditional.

However, as I am reading this page purely because I am unfamiliar with SAS, this may be a different definition of the word as it's used with SAS that I don't know. (However, I doubt it.) 13:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.70.201.220 (talk)

The variance of conditions is in the incoming values of variables. Thanks, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 14:41, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done In the search-bar-window, type 'macro' and you will find no examples of macro code. FYI, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 14:46, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Adding to the SAS Software Article

As a member of the sasCommunity Advisory Board, I am looking at expanding the article, bringing it up to date with user group information. This is a current trend and important direction over the past decade. To start, I have added the main website, http://www.sas.com that was missing under Links. Please indicate your interest in participating on my Talk page. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 14:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi - under the history of SAS Versions, for version 8.2 we are told that it was released in the year 2001, yet the next item in the history is the release of version 9.2 in March 2008. I would like to have the release dates of versions 9.0 and 9.1 given in the history. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jthayes12 (talk • contribs) 17:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

And now Version 9.3 is coming out. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

This article should include some mention of the licensing model. Unlike most software, SAS is leased. When you stop renewing it becomes inaccessible, along with any of your data in its containers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.57.150.68 (talk) 22:43, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a 'Criticism' section that could contain this (about licensing) but remember that this is why SAS is the #1 software company (licensing). Any criticism needs to be based in reality (who is complaining and why) and balanced with business sense, (what should SI do differently) — or at least, these business factors need to be emphasized. Would you agree? Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Data becomes inaccessible? Not so! Download the free SAS viewer. That's been the way for a long, long time. No different from MS-Office, really. RogerLustig (talk) 16:17, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Competitors

I added R and WPS to the list of competitors. While there are numerous FOSS available for statistical analyses, R and WPS appear to be particularly relevant competitors to SAS. R, arguably the current de facto language in academia, has received popular press as a competitor to SAS in the commercial realm (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html?pagewanted=all), while WPS is attempting to be a lower cost implementation of SAS. jthetzel (talk) 00:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI, for the last year or more, SAS Institute has been promoting their interface with R, just as they interface with Excel. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Not right to have a "Criticism" section without any citations

In my view, it is not right to have a "Criticism" section without any citations. I inserted two Citation needed tags in this section. If no one can provide citations, I would suggest removing this section. Karl (talk) 20:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

@User:Karl I support SAS marketing. As I understand it, Base SAS is criticized for its UI (I'm sure we can find sources for this), but most customers nowadays access the analytics from a different graphical user interface, like SAS Enterprise Guide, Excel plug-ins, JMP (statistical software), Visual Analytics, etc. Some continue to use Base SAS, because they prefer to work directly in-code.

If possible, I'd like to help improve the article, in particular in non-controversial areas, like improving the version history. I notice there is a Components section, but I believe there are more components than we could reasonably keep track of on Wikipedia. CorporateM (Talk) 20:59, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Components

This section contains a list of about 50 individual SAS components. My understanding is that about 200+ exist in-total. This list will never be complete or up-to-date and I believe the norm for Wikipedia is not to maintain such long lists, which are often seen as promotional product directories.

Some of the more notable components like Base SAS and Enterprise Guide I think may be appropriate to mention in other sections like Features, Software or Reception, but for now I think the best thing to do might be trim this section. Thoughts? CorporateM (Talk) 16:56, 17 September 2013 (UTC) (Please see COI disclosure mentioned above)

• I generally remove such sections as I see them, but that's me. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Market share

The market share section is focused only on the BI market and saying that SAS is the largest independent BI vendor, without mentioning it is the 5th largest overall seems a bit slanted.

I would suggest something like:

SAS is the largest market-share holder in advanced analytics with 35.2 percent of the market as of 2012.(IDC) It is the fifth largest market-share holder for BI software with a 6.9% share(IDC) and the largest independent vendor. It competes in the BI market against conglomerates, such as SAP BusinessObjects, IBM Cognos, SPSS Modeler, Oracle Hyperion, and Microsoft BI.(currently used OLAP report cite) SAS has been named in the Gartner Leader's Quadrant for Data Integration Tools(Gartner) and for Business Intelligence and Analytical Platforms.(Gartner) SAS was given the strongest position out of all the vendors evaluated in the Forrester Wave for Big Data Predictive Analytics Solutions.(Forrester)

Some of this, such as Forrester's in-depth review might be better off balancing the Criticisms section, as it does not relate specifically to market-share. I'd be happy to properly code the citations in article-space or do them here upon request. CorporateM (Talk) 00:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

That looks fine to me except for the last bit with the quotation marks. We need to make it less clunky and more like natural language, and put it in a lower section.

Speaking of which, I just deleted the criticism section as being unsourced and biased. We need a proper reception section that cites independent reviews.

I just created a page at SAS (software)/proposed revision which you can edit. Once everyone agrees that the draft version is neutral and properly sourced, I will move it to article space. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I moved it to Talk:SAS (software)/proposed revision per WP:Subpages and per the instructions on the {{draft}} template I'd placed on the page. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:10, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I Didn't know that we had a template for that. I made a note so that next time I will use the template --Guy Macon (talk) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I modified the sentence you mentioned above. Did you mean for me to draft the entire article at the draft space or a reception section? CorporateM (Talk) 02:23, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Are there any other changes you want to make other than improving the market share section and creating a reception section? If not we can just draft those two, If there are more improvements you want to make we should draft the entire aricle. If it is just a section oor two, we can draft just those.

I went ahead and changed the market share section. Good job; nicely worded. encyclopedic, and unbiased IMO. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:22, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I fixed the citation templates and a typo. I would like to improve the article as-a-whole, mostly in mundane ways to make it more concise, better-cited and better-formatted. It looks basically fair to me as-a-whole. I can start working on a proposed replacement of the entire thing, but that would create a burden on you to review and compare both versions. If you're ok with that - I'll get to work. I imagined it might be easier to take it one section at a time, but it's up to you! CorporateM (Talk) 12:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

A complete replacement works best for me. BTW, there is a trick that makes comparing versions really easy. Pull up the current version and hit the Edit button. Cut and paste the new version into the edit window. Hit the "Show Changes" button. After you finish looking at the comparison, leave the page without saving. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Will do. It may take a while for me to put it together, but I will be sure to ping you. Thanks for all your help! CorporateM (Talk) 15:18, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I just took a peek at the page, and so far it looks good. In particular, you handled the lawsuit against World Programming well. It gives the facts and points the reader to a good citation, all without any spin or bias. Keep up the good work. I love working with paid editors; someone else does all the hard work (and get paid for it) and then I review it, do a quick cut-and-paste, and get all the Wiki-credit. (Smile) --Guy Macon (talk) 18:02, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I didn't touch the lawsuit actually. It's already in the current page. My changes are much more mundane, like digging up citations, copyediting, trimming (lots of trimming), better formatting and editing, cutting some promotion, etc. CorporateM (Talk) 18:42, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Draft

Hi Guy Macon and other Talk page watchers. I've put together a draft for consideration by an impartial editor at Talk:SAS_(software)/proposed_revision. It still needs a bit more work, but it's substantially better-sourced, more neutral, and more concise than the current. If it's determined that this is "better", I'd be happy to keep working on it another time. I know there are some SAS users active on Wikipedia and one of them and/or some experts at SAS may have some corrections and other input.

I also note that there is some overlap between this page. SAS Institute Inc. and SAS language, but some of that overlap may be justified. CorporateM (Talk) 21:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I have incorporated most of CorporateM's suggested changes, after modifying the page in a few areas, mostly judgement calls about what wording works best. I take responsibility for the quality and neutrality of the material I just added. I really do think that it is an improvement. Note: I have zero connection with anything SAS-related. Any page can be improved, and I invite those who have more knowledge about SAS to jump in and make further improvements. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:30, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Overlaps

I'm doing some copyediting and adding proper citation templates on the SAS Institute page and was wondering if folks think the User Community and Certification topics would be better on the SAS (software) page or on the SAS Institute page or both. CorporateM (Talk) 00:54, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

It makes sense to me the way it is now, with those "meta" topics being described primarily on the company article, since they're services that the company provides, and not aspects of the software product itself. The software article could mention them briefly though, because those services support people using the software. Dreamyshade (talk) 00:41, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

How about a couple sentences like below? I'd like to take it for a GA round and am thinking about anything it still needs to be ready for a nomination. CorporateM (Talk) 04:44, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Short Community and training section
Community and training SAS certifications are available through the "SAS Global Certification" program and numerous user group conferences are hosted around the world each year. References

I would say something even simpler, more like this (but more elegantly phrased): "The SAS Institute runs a certification program for SAS software users, and it runs SAS software user groups and conferences." The date the certification program was established probably isn't important for this context, and the list of certifications sounds like a list of fancy ways to say "software users". :) Dreamyshade (talk) 07:05, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done Modified per your suggestion above CorporateM (Talk) 07:58, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

This source actually has a nice list of resources, support and training options. CorporateM (Talk) 02:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Good Article

User:DGG gave me some thoughts on how to improve this article further in preparation for GA here. Here's his comment:

"my sense is that the problem is the overall organization and prose style. It just sounds uninteresting, and the usual cure for that is greater sentence variation. There's also some duplication (there still is also some in the JMP article) I think the two articles need sections on key applications: such a section can be a horror if done without judgement and selectivity, but you should be able to do it right. They also do need a discussion of how they fit into the overall spectrum of statistical software--sections dealing with competitors can also be problems, but again maybe you can get it right. The article of comparison of statistical software just gives features, not a useful idea of what the most widely used choices are. DGG ( talk ) 09:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)"

CorporateM (Talk) 01:11, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Redundancy:  Done I think there may still be some redundancies in the article, but I think I got most of it.
• Applications: What I found in my research was that "applications" of the software like customer intelligence, risk management or IT management were the actual products. The current article has technical information, but no section yet describing what people actually buy. I started a draft for a Products section.
• Structure: This was not mentioned in DGG's feedback, but having more context on what the actual products are, I think a more standard ordering of sections would be History, Products, then Technical overview and terminology. CorporateM (Talk) 22:58, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested Edit

User:EdJohnston found a great study that could be added. I suggest something like: "A study published in BMC Health Services Research found that SAS was used in 42.6 percent of data analyses in health service research." My suggestion would be to change the "Market Share" section to "Adoption" and add it there.

I was hoping to get a second opinion on if we should add the Products section I authored here. The sources are not very good, but then I often use primary sources for a summary of products where secondary sources cannot be found and the feedback I got on the article so far steered me in this direction. I'm open to whatever an impartial editor thinks. Thanks in advance for your time and thoughtfulness. CorporateM (Talk) 21:22, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I added the item from BMC Health Services Research. I've held off on adding your text from User:CorporateM/SAS. This is not due to the material being inadequate, but due to its taking up a lot of space. I've no objection if you want to repost the edit request to see if someone else wants to put it in. Our articles aren't only read by students of business, they also should have some appeal to those who may want to use a stat package and want to kick the tires. In my opinion that part needs expansion. Glad to see there is now a code example. EdJohnston (talk) 23:37, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks EdJohnston. Are you suggesting that there should be a Products section, but a shorter one than the proposed? Or just that it being long makes it difficult to review? CorporateM (Talk) 23:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Third opinion here, posting after a request on my talk page. The current article is 8,000 characters long, whereas the suggested section is 2,500 characters long. Reasonable, though a bit of trimming would certainly be nice. As for actual specifics on programs they are selling, I think that would be too detailed for an article on the company (unless, of course, there is a direct comparison in reviews). If we had an article on some of these products, sure... in the product article. This article should only have a summary of what they sell (and even then, not all items). Compare the detail at McDonald's with Big Mac. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:37, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Crisco 1492! I trimmed it about 30% down to 252 words, which would make it 15% of the article once-added. I also noticed in the process some opportunities to make it less promotional, though you didn't bring that up necessarily. For some reason (I am easily distracted) I am snickering at the comparison of enterprise software to a hamburger. If I eat some SAS, will it taste good but make me overweight? Oh mindless banter is a disease that spreads when you watch Drmies talk page for too long.

Would you be comfortable with adding it now or does it need more trimming? CorporateM (Talk) 14:06, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Will take a detailed look. As for the McD and BM, I was just thinking of company and product (after all, goods can take many forms). Compare the amount of detail (including nutritional information, the "specifications" of a hamburger) in the McD and BM articles. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

"key performance indicators" - Is this their term, or an industry wide one? Might be worth quotes if it is unique to SAS.

Overall reads well, though a bit of information from reviews (if available) would be useful for balancing what is predominantly primary information. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

It is a general business term. I have added a wikilink. Only 2 out of 17 cites are primary, but I think a lot of the "secondary sources", while they have an independent byline, are just repeating information provided by SAS. However, I am using the best sources I was able to find. I was just bantering about the burger comparison - I knew what you meant. ;-) CorporateM (Talk) 14:33, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Alrighty. Are there any reviews, though? A bit of information such as that would be more useful for the general reader (such as myself) who may not be familiar with such terminology. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:40, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Just so everything's in one place, I ended up writing two paragraphs and then merging in the subpage mentioned above. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SAS (software)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sssssss340 (talk · contribs) 12:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I am planning on reviewing this article sssssss340 12:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Closing review

I've closed the GA "review", seeing as the reviewer appears to have left Wikipedia. If you want, you can have an admin delete it, since the reviewer didn't leave any comments, but that's up to you. Hopefully the next reviewer will be more helpful. :) AmericanLemming (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

You'll need to renominate, yes. Thankfully, the subsection it falls under isn't very full, so you won't be at the end of the line. However, I think there might be a way to renominate it and keep the January 12 nomination date, but I'm not sure how that works. You could ask at the Help Desk; they might know how that works. AmericanLemming (talk) 17:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SAS (software)/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hahc21 (talk · contribs) 02:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

General

• First, congratulations. You have improved so much since the last time I reviewed one of your articles. I really am impressed by the quality of your work. I knew I was right in believing in you :)

Thanks! I'm impressed by how much AGF I got even as I made bad COI edits for a long time before making good ones. CorporateM (Talk) 03:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

• I'd recommend you to name the references and move the to the {{reflist}}. That way, editing the article will be a much easier process. I do this for my FAs.

I don't understand what you mean. CorporateM (Talk) 03:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Lead

• Looks okay.

Technical overview and terminology

• I'd only recommend removing the components' list and examples. I don't think they are important enough to be mentioned.

Hrm, I'm not sure. The original was attempting to be a comprehensive list, but the current list is very selective based on those components that are often included in profile stories and most profile stories name a few of the more important components. Lists of products/features/components are often an indication of breaching WP:NOT a directory for COI/promotion, but in this case my concern is the opposite. SAS markets their products based on their use cases, but developers still see it as components and I think some of the SAS developers here on Wikipedia might beat me with a stick if I removed the components alltogether. Or maybe, I'm way off, I don't know. CorporateM (Talk) 13:35, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

History

• "The following year a full version was released with SAS 72" --> "as SAS 72", no?

 Done

Development

• "A few years later, SAS 82" --> "Three years later, ..." If you are aiming to jump to FAC in the future, using specific numbers will make your life more easy

 Done

• "SAS version 4 had limited features, but made SAS more accessible. Version 5 introduced..." Wait. What are versions 4 and 5?

It's all referring to the same software. At first it was named after the year of the release; SAS 76 in 1976, SAS 79 in 1979 and SAS 82 in 1982 (three releases so far. Are you following me?). Then they switched it to version numbers and named the fourth release SAS 4 and counted up from there. I can add more explanation if you like, I'm pretty sure I could find a source for it.

• "In 1985 SAS, which was previously written in PL/I, Fortran, and assembly language, was re-written in the C programming language." Try to avoid overcharging sentences. Being specific and to-the-point is always better. I'd recommend using this: "In 1985, SAS was rewritten in the C programming language. This change allowed for SAS' Multivendor Architecture and for it to run on UNIX, MS-DOS, and Windows. It was previously written in PL/I, Fortran, and assembly language."
  • Maybe also link PL/I, Fortran and assembly language.
  • Maybe explain a bit what this multivendor architecture is about. I sort of get the idea, but I'm not 100% sure I am getting it as I should.

 Done I see my original text was misleading. The multivendor architecture is what allows it to run on multiple operating systems, but I presented these as two separate things.

• "Updated versions of JMP were released in 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008,[25][26] 2009,[27] 2010,[28] [29] and 2012.[30] [31]" Is there really a need to mention each update? I'd go with "Updated versions of JMP were released constantly from 2000, with the most recent one shipped in 2012." or something. Just a suggestion though.

 Done Makes sense, especially because JMP (statistical software) already has a separate article I brought up to GA a while back. Technically it's original synthesis, but I think it's covered by common sense.

• "SAS version 6 was used throughout the 1990s" and released when?
  • Know what? I think you will actually benefit more from having a table listing all the SAS releases, with year and significant improvements. That way you won't have to repeatedly point out which year what was released, and could focus text on improvements and other significant things (as you already did, so cheers). I know this is not necessary for GAN, so I'm not gonna hold promotion if you decide not to do it, but it would be nice!

Meh, I don't like tables and it wouldn't integrate well with some of the early history + it would be a pretty substantial overhaul and a lot of coding work for a very marginal improvement. CorporateM (Talk) 04:12, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Recent history

• "as the software's primary GUI." What is GUI? (I know it stands for Graphic User Interface but many readers won't)

 Done

• Same with CRM. I wouldn't need to hover over the link to know what CRM stands for in this case (CRM has several meanings in the computing world)

 Done

• "In 2008 SAS announced Project Unity, a project to integrate" I think "a project" is redundant. I'd go with "Project Unity, designed to integrate"

 Done

• "integration with R" with what?

My battery is flatlining at 1%, but let me look into this tomorrow. I couldn't find it in the source off-the-bat and I'm not sure if it is the R programming language or the software of the company that is known for using it. CorporateM (Talk) 04:23, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done R (programming language)

All for now! → Call me Hahc21 02:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay. Everything else looks good. So, I'm passing. I can't believe you used 71 sources! → Call me Hahc21 16:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Updates

Suggest adding some recently published sources to keep the page up to date. I've put together a quick draft of a couple sentences to potentially add to the end of the History section:

• "SAS Visual Analytics, a suite of dashboard and reporting features, was released in 2012. In 2014 it was updated with goal-seeking features, which measure the effect variables have on business goals, and path analysis, which tracks the path of a transaction. SAS Factory Miner was introduced in June 2015 to build models for predictive analytics in a drag and drop interface.

CorporateM (Talk) 16:51, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

sas syntax highlighting lost

Since the switch from Geshi to Pygments for syntax highlighting (phab:T85794), support for 'sas' was unfortunately dropped, as can be seen with the plain text formatting on this page. Are there other pages using this syntax? If we want 'sas' syntax highlight support again, it will need to be added to Pygments. However, Pygments may define other languages which could be a suitable fallback, which could be very easily added like this patch. Please let me know if there is similar language. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:49, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello World

I noticed that there's a seemingly random occurence of a Hello, World in the article at the end of the Technical overview and terminology section. Looking into it revealed it actually belonged to a previous code example, that was overwritten with what looks like a copy-paste of another example, giving no explanation as to what it's supposed to do, and not enclosed in any correct source tag. The section title was also removed in the process. Not being a SAS expert (nor novice) I can't understand any of it. Going forward, I see two options: revert it or overhaul it. The modification can be viewed here

Lepaperwan (talk) 14:44, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

SAS Language and SAS Software are essentially same things

SAS Language and SAS Software are essentially same things in my opinion. Hence this article can be merged / redirected. I would request opinions of other experienced editors. Thank you. --Abhijeet Safai (talk) 10:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

University Edition

SAS University edition is freely downloadable software which is Unix based and which runs on virtual box. There is no mention of this university edition in the article. May I request to suggest where this can be added? Thank you. -- Abhijeet Safai (talk) 05:23, 6 January 2019 (UTC)