| This post was kindly contributed by The SAS Training Post - go there to comment and to read the full post. |
Dear Miss SAS Answers,
I have several questions for you:
Who are you really? What’s up with the Miss SAS Answers character, anyway? Will you answer all of my SAS questions?
Signed,
Curious
The answer to that last question is, “Well, maybe. I know there’s one I won’t answer for sure, and that one is, ‘How old are you?’” As for the others…
I’m Linda Jolley, a SAS Instructor based in the Kansas City MO area. From 1980 to 1997, I was employed as a SAS programmer in various industries in the Southeast US, so I have lots of experience with programming in SAS. I also did some training of other programmers in SAS coding and some proselytizing about SAS software. While this wasn’t what I was going to be when I grew up (I was an English major in college), SAS (the software) has paid a lot of bills for me over the years by providing opportunities for employment, no matter where I lived. As my husband told me when I first started programming in SAS, “Stay with it! You’ll find you really, really like it.” He was right!
I’ve been a SAS instructor since 1997. I’m Base and Advanced SAS Programming certified and working on the Data Integration Developer certification. This is my dream job. I get to travel all over and teach folks how to use SAS software. What could be better (at least for me)?
Miss SAS Answers was “born” back in 2006. Jane Stroupe and I were searching for a clever idea for a SAS® Global Forum paper. The SAS® Global Forum 2007 conference was being held in Orlando FL at Walt Disney World, and we really wanted to attend!
What we finally settled on was a fictitious advice columnist named “Miss SAS Answers”. SAS users could send in their Base SAS coding questions, and Miss SAS Answers would provide short, snappy answers. The rest, as they say, is history:
• SAS® Global Forum 2007: A Guide to SAS® Efficiency
• SAS® Global Forum 2009: A Guide to Efficient PROC SQL Coding
• SAS® Global Forum 2010: A Guide to Sorting Your Data
While we’ve skipped a few years, the Miss SAS Answers papers have been very well attended and are in high demand for Regional and Local SAS User Group meetings.
I’ve been asked to translate this character to the SAS Training blogosphere. Miss SAS Answers will take one question per blog and look at one (or more) ways to solve the problem. While she will concentrate on Foundation (Base) SAS, she is not limited to that domain.
Disclaimer: Miss SAS Answers is not intended to be a substitute for SAS Technical Support or for the SAS support web site. She is intended to be a fun way to answer a specific question or solve a specific problem.
Stay tuned for the first Miss SAS Answers Q & A blog! If you have a question about SAS coding or other SAS topics, let us know by posting your question in the comments section below.
In the meantime, happy SAS programming!
-Miss SAS Answers
| This post was kindly contributed by The SAS Training Post - go there to comment and to read the full post. |