For those of you who get Food TV (or Fuji TV in Japan), you're probably aware of Iron Chef. For those who are not aware of this cult TV classic, it is a cross between a cooking program and WWF wrestling. The basic premise is for a Challenger Chef and a Champion Chef (the Iron Chef) to do head-to-head battle on screen with a secret theme ingredient that is unveiled on camera. They have one hour to prepare dishes that best demonstrate the attributes of the secret theme ingredient. At the end of the hour, there is a tasting and judging. The winning chef goes on to fame and glory, the loser goes on to ... well, since this is a Japanese show, the loser gets to save face and maybe try again some other day.

Last week, at SSU 2001, we had our own version of Iron Chef -- we called it Iron SAS. In a double elimination round-robin, four teams battled through three theme "ingredients" until ultimately one team was declared Iron SAS. Chairman Kaga was played by the inimitable Rick Langston. Our distinguished panel of judges were Vince DelGobbo, Don Henderson, and Ian Whitlock. Competing for the title of Iron SAS were the Princes of PROCs, the Dukes of Data, the Wizards of Where, and the Sultans of Sorts. The team winning the competition were the Princes of Procs -- Bob Woods, Trang Le, and Barry Moser.

Each battle had a ten minute time limit. For each of the three battles, the teams were informed of the problem they needed to solve and the secret theme "ingredient" they needed to use in their solution. Note that the Theme Ingredient MUST be used in the solution. All of the battles are solvable. I plan on posting each of the three battles, along with the secret theme "ingredient", in individual posts for the amusement and challenge to the SAS-L community. This email contains the first battle. The second battle will be posted on Friday, August 31. The third battle will be posted on Friday September 7. Have fun!

The first Iron SAS Battle:

Data: Census data with household information, including ages of all household residents.

Goal: Produce a report showing age in 10 year intervals with a starting point at the median age. eg if the median age is 35, the intervals are 35 - 44, 45 - 54, etc

Theme Ingredient: Proc Format without using a Data Step in the solution

The clock is ticking ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- S. David Riba INTERNET: dave@JADETEK.COM JADE Tech, Inc. http://www.jadetek.com P O Box 4517 Clearwater, FL 33758 SAS Certified Professional - V6 VOICE: (727) 726-6099 A SAS Alliance Partner

SSU 2001 Co-Chair www.ssu2001.com

SAS. It's not just an attitude