Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:28:58 -0400
Reply-To: "Audimar P. Bangi" <audi@SAS2THEMAX.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: "Audimar P. Bangi" <audi@SAS2THEMAX.COM>
Organization: sas2themax.com
Subject: Re: FW: Import Excel Into SAS
In-Reply-To: <000501c88d72$04f6f220$0ee4d660$@US>
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Hey Stephen,
I don't see a way of turning off the Process Flow feature. Of course you can
delete the current process flow item, but as soon as you do something like
importing a data file or opening a code file, a new Process Flow item is
automatically added.
I'm glad you mentioned about IntelliSense being an important feature but
lacking in EG and other SAS editors. IntelliSense may be not as useful or
indispensable as a productivity tool for SAS programmers as it is for .NET
programmers because most of the time, copy-pasting an already existing
solution is a more common task than writing/editing a long macro function or
program. I'm not saying that all SAS programmers are copy-and-paste
programmers. It's just that only very few really do code crunching from
scratch -- like the calibers of Richard DeVenezia, Toby Dunn, data_null,
and other prominent SAS-Lers. If you write or edit a lot of macros and SAS
programs, you will find the IntelliSense feature of my Notebook (both Light
& Professional versions) really handy and useful.
I doubt SAS will ever implement something Microsoft-patented inside a Sun
Java-written software. When SAS CEO Jim Goodnight said "They're a damn
monopoly", you can feel the animosity of SAS towards Microsoft.
Regards, Audi
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen McDaniel" <stephen@STEPHENMCDANIEL.US>
To: <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 1:43 AM
Subject: Re: FW: Import Excel Into SAS
> Hi Audi,
>
> The next release of EG will support Office 2007. Unfortunately, due to
> the
> extended time it takes between major releases at SAS, the old EG doesn't
> support Office 2007 which wasn't production as of EG 4.1 release. SAS 9.1
> XML support is available programmatically but isn't terribly flexible or
> easy IMO, EG doesn't have it at all. EG does import and export from
> multiple database and file formats.
>
> I would have to respect your opinion on the process flow in EG, but I can
> personally tell you that many people love this feature and use it
> exclusively. Some even consider it the reason to have adopted EG 4.1. If
> you don't like the feature, it can be easily turned off. That said, a
> major
> feature in Visual Studio that is lacking in SAS DMS and EG is the
> Intellisense type of logic in VS and in Excel 2007, this would make
> programming much easier in SAS. Also, it would be really cool if EG would
> let you drag and drop datasets and column names straight into the code
> window!
>
> As someone who is constantly joining tables and prepping data for
> analytics,
> I would say the EG process flow is usually pretty nice, occasionally out
> of
> hand, but overall a major plus IMO.
>
> Best,
> Stephen
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