on 3/15/2006 7:51 PM Joe Whitehurst said the following:

> Toby, Harry, et al, > > After Toby has gone out on a thin limb and said: "And before Joe starts > talking about retraining everyone to use AF and it would save them money in > the long run, let me say it aint so. More SAS programmers know the macro > language than AF.", let me assert that Toby, usually a wise and thoughtful > guy, seems to have lapsed into a solipsistic state wherein he is unable to > understand that more SAS programmers know the SAS datastep language than > know the macro language which means that they already know more than 90% of > the small subset of SAS Component Language that they need to know to > completely replace the macro language. I know lots of businessmen who would > have no trouble at all with this argument. I have convinced many of them to > license SAS/AF for this reason alone. In fact, when I was in the QP > program, SAS Institute paid me more than $100,000 one year in fees for > licensing SAS Software during the Dot.Com boom.

Rumor has it that lots of dot.com companies have gone bust. Perhaps it was AF that pushed them over the edge.

I don't think that many, if any, people on SAS-L would defend the macro language qua language. I make extensive use of it, but I agree that it's arcane and antiquated (and wasn't leading edge even back in the 1970's when it was first devised). I use it because it gets the job done and is part of base SAS.