Date:         Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:26:44 -0500
Reply-To:     "Ronald P. Larkin" <r-larkin@UIUC.EDU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Ronald P. Larkin" <r-larkin@UIUC.EDU>
Organization: Illinois Natural History Survey
Subject:      Statistics instruction via books? (was: Why SAS)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

In article <33D6EE25.766C@ibm.net>, Anthony Ayiomamitis
<ayiomamitis@ibm.net> wrote:
 
>     Since when was SAS responsible for explaining to a user the
> "statistical issues" behind a PROC or an option? SAS is, in one sense, a
> library of tools for you to use as needed....
>...I don't think I
> should be faulting SAS for not explaining it to me in their manuals.
> There are ... books for this purpose.
 
  This point of view seems kind of quaint in 1997 because the concept of a
printed statistics text separate from statistics software is outdated.  I
wonder why, when we do statistics only with computers, we learn statistics
from books.  I look forward to a softcopy, highly interactive introduction
to statistics (or to a specialty thereof) that is configurable to provide
syntax, examples, and examinations using any one of several statistical
packages.
 
Ron Larkin
--
Ron Larkin (r-larkin@uiuc.edu)
Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign IL 61820