Date:         Thu, 3 May 2007 10:20:44 -0400
Reply-To:     Don Henderson <donaldjhenderson@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Comments:     RFC822 error: <W> MESSAGE-ID field duplicated. Last occurrence
              was retained.
From:         Don Henderson <donaldjhenderson@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: SAS Sample 1728 Was ---> Re: SAS Sample 1727
In-Reply-To:  <BAY123-F2444B8E4F36320886E4F6EDE410@phx.gbl>
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First, let me admit/acknowledge that I have no knowledge of the history of
this thread. Been tied up catching up post SAS Global Forum and post the
announcement of sasCommunity.org.

But I would like to offer some thoughts regarding Toby's comment:

> No as for the sascommunity.org, do we really want a macro library.  Well I
> would say yes and no.  I would like to have one and there are those who
> have
> paced some Macros on there already.  I believe Don and Ron both have,
> actually they were on there before the Wiki went public.  However, since
> people tend to get Macro crazy and delusional, I wouldnt want everyone to
> start dumping their macros on their.  Many times we see people who create
> macros where they shouldnt have created macros.   So I would caution
> against
> getting too happy with placing macros on the sascomunnity.org.  Dont get
> me
> wrong if it is a good macro well designed and well usefull hunk of code
> then
> by all means get it up tere and fast, however think about it before you do
> it please.

I share Toby's concerns regarding folks getting macro happy. And, like Toby,
don't get me wrong, I like macros and use them a lot. But far too many users
jump right into macro. So my concern WRT sasCommunity.org is that I am
hoping the users don't go macro happy and tag/categorize everything as a
macro instead of something about the specific issue being addressed.

As far as the pre-release example that I put out there
(http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/Filelist_macro), as stated at the top of
the page, this is something that I created based on some different ideas
from SAS-L. The point of this example was to suggest that instead of
uploading .sas files containing macro code, that we consider using the
features of the wiki to embed the code in the page. That would enable
anybody to improve it and comment on it, while still keeping all the
history.

And, yes I know that the macro could perhaps do more error checking :-).
That is a tough issue because quite often the calling environment has
already done many checks and having each macro check each and every
assumption is a tough nut to crack.

Regards,
-don h