I thought the specification was quite reasonable Richard. It calls for you to write a data step to create the stream. That means you can: 1. Understand the concept of creation of a series of data points from provided start values 2. Understand and code the formulae for compound interest calculation 3. Once it is written, explain its functionality to the interviewer(s).

One of my personal bugbears is what we are teaching to this generation of children, many of whom can punch numbers into a calculator and produce an answer they can neither explain nor substantiate. Just because someone can code Proc Forecast, like me, doesn't mean I should be employed by my friend Andrew Karp to explain Time Series analysis to his clients. I can write the code, but only he could say it was producing correct or even meaningful results.

And if that seems too esoteric to you, consider the results produced at a former 'shop' where I worked. A person with data being analysed by two class variables produced a data set from Proc Means with a set of sum values populated to a Proc Tabulate. Unfortunately the resultant bottom right cell reported a value that clearly did not make sense. It was inflated by a factor of four and the person who produced the report did not even recognise the problem with the magnitude. The Proc Means was otherwise perfect. Just those four little letters 'NWAY' were missing. (Of course the presence of missing values accounting for half of the total in each classification vector should also have been a warning.)

Happy holidays and beginning of the last year of the Millennium.

David

----- Original Message ----- From: Richard DeVenezia <radevenz@IX.NETCOM.COM> To: <SAS-L@AKH-WIEN.AC.AT> Sent: 31 December 1999 04:40 Subject: Re: NYC SAS Job

> Wow, > > $60/hr to run PROC LOAN; > > Talk about a happy new year ;-) > > "Stats Hunter" <stats4096@yahoo.com> wrote in message > news:386B7ADB.EC1D8AC3@yahoo.com... > > New York bank is seeking a SAS programmer (hourly temp full days) in its > > mortgage area. Three years experience. Data step, basic reports, and > > macros. $50-$60 per hour. > > > > If you can write a data step to create a file with a principal and > > interest stream based on a mortgage balance, mortgage start date, term > > and rate you have the minimum requirement for this position. > > > > If you have any of these additional skills, let me know: > > Finance, Banking or Wall Street > > Cross platform SAS coding (Unix, WinTel, DEC, Mainframe) > > Mortgage Collateralization > > Sybase, MS SQL Server, Access > > > > Respond with a note (and a resume) to stats4096@yahoo.com > > > > > > > >