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deleted_user
Not applicable
Hi,

Anyone know when EG 4.3 will be released in Canada. I was using 4.2 at my previous workplace but my current workplace still has 4.1. Just wondering if it is best to wait for 4.3 rather than upgrade sooner to 4.2.
25 REPLIES 25
Doc_Duke
Rhodochrosite | Level 12
A little birdie just told me that the release of EGuide 4.3 had been delayed, so it won't show up for anybody for a while. Darn! S/he wouldn't give me an expected date (no surprise there, and I didn't press), but the inflection in the voice indicated that it was more than a month out.

Whether to go with 4.2 now or wait for 4.3 probably hinges on how much of your EGuide work is in code tasks. The point-n-click activities didn't change much, if at all; the work was in the back-office type activities.
twocanbazza
Quartz | Level 8
Hi.

Here in NZ we are being told August, but we are also being told the 4.3 clients are due October, so not really sure.

Barry
Shane_Gibson
Calcite | Level 5
Chris from SAS posted a comment on my Blog here:

http://blog.saasinct.com/2010/07/13/sas-9-2-bi-clients-m3-now-october/#comments

Which says its arriving in August, and as he is the product manager for EG, im betting on August!
Patrick
Opal | Level 21
I heard the same than twocanbazza and I also read what Chris said. I assume the source of this "rumour" is identical.

But isn't a product manager subject to wishful thinking? 😉

What would you bet Shane? Based on past experiences I'd say: Not before September.

....no offence meant Chris!
Doc_Duke
Rhodochrosite | Level 12
At this point, 4.3 is out of Chris' hands and with QA. QA is an independent group (and, like all QA groups, guards the independence religiously), so Chris can't do much but guess based on past experience and the level of questions that he might be getting.

OTOH, QA saves all of us from having to do it locally. I see it as a net gain.
deleted_user
Not applicable
EG 4.3 is due to be available today....
GoodPeace
Calcite | Level 5
> At this point, 4.3 is out of Chris' hands and with
> QA. QA is an independent group (and, like all QA
> groups, guards the independence religiously), so
> Chris can't do much but guess based on past
> experience and the level of questions that he might
> be getting.

/sarcasm on

Oh, so SAS does have a QA group! And EG4.3 actually went through that group!

Having used EG4.3 for the first two days here, I would have guessed otherwise...

/sarcasm off

> OTOH, QA saves all of us from having to do it
> locally. I see it as a net gain.

I agree, the QA group probably takes away some bugs and annoyances, which saves us end users from doing it. Actually I would wish the QA group was even less independent, and a lot more integrated with either the developers or maybe some SAS business consultants as representatives of us end users.

Anyway, it's good to have the EG4.3 on hand, trying out some of the new stuff, like the code completion - which looks great, though I suspect it to be the cause of EGs memory hogging behavior...
ChrisHemedinger
Community Manager
I'm just catching up with this thread. It might be fun to post a blog series about how we work here at SAS with QA and internal standards. My colleague David Biesack will be doing that at http://blogs.sas.com/peerrevue.

But just to address a few points:

- our QA staff (development testers) are embedded with the development staff. My office shares a wall with that of the manager for EG testing; she's my neighbor.

- EG 4.3 has been through a rigorous testing cycle and we are confident that it's of high quality. That said, history shows that customers sometimes find problems that we didn't, and we try to address the important issues quickly through the hotfix process.

- If you suspect that EG is using more memory that it should and it's causing you problems, please work with SAS Technical Support to track the issue. We actually improved some of the memory management within EG 4.3. We are very interested to know what scenarios you might be running that cause undue performance issues. We don't think that the new program editor would cause this.

Chris
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GoodPeace
Calcite | Level 5
Interesting blog topic, I've added it to my reader.

Please forgive my bitter sarcasm, it's a heritage thing over in here in our parts of the world. I guess you know UK humor, while the danish use of irony and said sarcasm is not any less mean..

I do believe EG went through rigorous testing, and I suppose the main focus naturally and rightfully has been on the inside mechanics and results of procedures, tasks etc. However, since I've gotten used to SAS products just working out of the box, and because I actually like the products so much, that I care about it, I do identify a lot of minor problems each about the size of a paper cut.

I have not had enough time to figure out when EG hogs memory, but I've seen 300 mb physical and 300mb virtual ram being used, and that seems like too much for a fairly thin client that's submitting all code to a server. I will try to address it through tech support, once I narrow it down a bit, and also build some mem usage stats from more regular use.

What is a normal, and from your viewpoint, acceptable memory usage?
ChrisHemedinger
Community Manager
Because SAS Enterprise Guide is a .NET application, there are nuances to how memory is managed. You can't really tell too much about how efficient the application is simply by looking at the working set.

The .NET runtime is generous with initial memory allocations, if there are available resources. Over time, you might see memory use climb if you look at the working set number. But when resources get tighter on the system, you should see that number go back down.

For example, suppose that you start EG and open a large report. When the report is opened and rendered, you'll probably see memory use increase. When you close the report view, the application will free the memory, but you might not see the working set number decrease right away. That doesn't indicate a problem. It's only a problem if, over time as you use the application, memory use climbs and climbs and never goes down, even if your activity remains level.

One trick that sometimes works to show this: minimize the application and then restore it. You might see the working set go down. That's kind of like "jiggling the handle", but it doesn't really indicate a leak. It's just triggering Windows and the .NET runtime to clean up, which would have happened sooner or later.

There's an old article that describes this; it's out of date but mostly still applies:
http://www.getdotnetcode.com/gdncstore/free/Articles/The%20Memory%20Mystery.htm

Chris
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GoodPeace
Calcite | Level 5
Chris, I can see what you mean with the current mem usage - I tried jiggling my EG, making it release the memory.

This also supports your point, that I can't really tell how efficient EG is by looking at the current memory usage, because whether it's using 80Mb og 300Mb, it is just as painstakingly slow and un-smooth to work with.

My previous guess about the code completion being the bad guy also seems wrong, because turning it off makes no difference.

I've also tried disconnecting my client EG from the server, but that doesn't really make any difference.

A colleague of mine suggested I should get some more juice in my hardware or simply some newer hardware. That would be lovely in so many other aspects, but since I don't really have any problems with such basic actions as copying and pasting simple text from on child window to another in any of my other applications, I don't think that is the real cure, but merely a dose of medicine. Rather expensive medicine that is, and I prefer the money to be spent on my salary rather than on hardware.

Enough joking around, I've finally followed your primary suggestion; I picked up the phone and made a call to a friendly fella at my local tech support. He acknowledged the issue, and promised to look around for methods to debug it, and said he'd get back to me.

I'll keep you posted on progress 🙂
Doc_Duke
Rhodochrosite | Level 12
If anyone hears that it is actually available, can you post it here. I've pestered my site rep enough this summer....

Thanks,
Doc
lanceanz
Obsidian | Level 7
I've just downloaded a brand new order and it's only got EG 4.22. The documentation indicated to me that 4.3 was current. SAS said on Friday 20th August that it had shipped two days previously. Download was 10.6GB this time. I'm not a happy chappy and can only hope that a separate download is available for EG 4.3 shortly that can be added to my Software Depot.
Peter_C
Rhodochrosite | Level 12
Monday, I called my SAS Customer Support (UK) who responded saying it is available and through my SAS account manager I can request it !
Well that took less time than QA.
Hopefully it will arrive soon.

looking forward to it all (and all those improvements for programmers 😉 )
peterC

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