Paul,

What you say is true, but if I were hiring a programmer, or planning the invasion of a foreign country, I would tip the scale pretty heavily in favor or accuracy.

In programming, the fast end of the scale has a pretty wide range. Beyond tolerance, accuracy only has a range when you are satisfied with a partial result. If I were asked, "How fast can you code a SAS solution, with no worry about accuracy?" My answer would be, "One second." The code lies between the two dashed lines below.

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Not too accurate, but there are no error messages. It applies to any problem; it is self documenting; and it is a start on an accurate solution where no reworking of the code will be needed.

Sorry you won't be there.

Ian Whitlock ==================== Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 08:12:33 -0700 Reply-To: "Choate, Paul@DDS" <pchoate@DDS.CA.GOV> Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" From: "Choate, Paul@DDS" <pchoate@DDS.CA.GOV> Subject: Re: awkward code Quickness and accuracy are competing ends of the programming continuum. I suggest that most code lies somewhere in the middle. I wish I could go to SUGI and see all you guys. Alas, I'll wait until it's here in CA. Paul Choate DDS Data Extraction (916) 654-2160 <snip>