There are a lot of useful probability distributions that are not featured in standard statistical textbooks. Some of them have distinctive names. In the past year I have had contact with SAS customers who use the Tweedie distribution, the slash distribution, and the PERT distribution. Often these distributions are used […]
Category: SAS
Tony Barr and the Early History of SAS
SAS historians (not all SAS users!) know Anthony James Barr (aka Tony Barr or Jim Barr) was the designer and implementor of SAS language (1966-1979) and the founding CEO of SAS Institute (1976-1979). In this picture was Tony Barr in the first SUGI (January 26-28, 1976, Kissimmee, FL), taken by the first SUGI chair Julian […]
Technical Debt
Last week I mentioned a term that was new to me (Mutation Testing) and so I thought I’d mention another recently acquired term – Technical Debt. In this case I was familiar with the concept, but I hadn’t heard the term before. I think the term v…
Winnipeg: of Pregnancies, Graphs & SAS Camaraderie
Last Friday I arrived late at night in a rainy, blustery Winnipeg twilight… a little delayed, but happy to be on the ground. In no small part this was because I was eagerly anticipating seeing friends and colleagues in the friendly confines of …
Prairie Winds, Plotting Petrol Points & SAS
I had the good fortune of travelling to Saskatoon last week for the SUCCESS user group meeting. I absolutely LOVE this community. To a man and woman they are friendly and welcoming, and exceptionally eager to share their SAS knowledge with …
Verifying a SAS BI installation
After installing SAS Business Intelligence, I would also suggest verifying that all is working appropriately before adding users or importing content from another machine. (My template checklist is included below.) The act of creating the content is an…
Macro programmers: watch out for the Dead Man’s Curve!
In my previous blog post, I mentioned that I love the power of the SAS macro language and the power of my yellow Corvette. Now, I want to tell you how to avoid a major pitfall along the “macro programming road.” At the risk of dating myself, you ma…
Three ways to specify colors in SAS statistical graphics procedures
What’s in a name? As Shakespeare’s Juliet said, “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” A similar statement holds true for the names of colors in SAS: “Rose” by any other name would look as red! SAS enables you to specify a […]