Date:         Thu, 6 Jun 2002 10:21:16 -0700
Reply-To:     Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "David L. Cassell" <Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Beginning SAS skills
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Kevin Auslander <kevin.auslander@CCSITEAM.COM> wrote:
> Hello SAS users.  I am new to SAS (been using it for a month) and I am
looking for ways to develop skills.  I am working for a
> contracting company that has staff in the pharmaceutical, automotive,
and medical industries.  I want to develop skills that would
> be useful for data analysis in these industries.  I am a very fast
learner and I recently received my BS in Computer Engineering
> from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  Please give suggestions
of projects I could work on to improve my skills.
>
> I am personally interested in gambling and probabilities.  I was
wondering how I could use SAS to create a data set of shuffled
> cards.  Any suggestions?  I know that the following program will
create a data set of an unshuffled deck of cards (1=Ace, 11=Jack,
> 12=Queen, 13=King).  But what if I want them to be randomized?

Ed Heaton has already given you an interesting answer to your second
question
[of course].  But there are lots of ways to do it.  You can look up the
words
'randomize' and 'random' in the SAS-L archives and find lots of
discussions
on ways to randomize a data set and take a random sample from a data
set,
ranging from Ed's solution on up to the use of tools such as PROC
SURVEYSELECT.

If you want to develop your SAS skills, look no farther than this list.
Try
to solve some of the questions asked, test your answers to see if they
work,
and then study the answers posted by the many knowledgeable posters on
this
list.

HTH,
David
--
David Cassell, CSC
Cassell.David@epa.gov
Senior computing specialist
mathematical statistician