I am currently working towards my SAS base certification and I am using SAS enterprise guide 6.1 as well as the SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming for SAS 9, third edition. I have noticed obvious differences in the software used in the book and the enterprise guide and I am having great difficulty applying the techniques used in the book to the enterprise guide. Do I need SAS 9 to be able to practice the programming in the book or is their a way to do it with the enterprise guide? Any help or advice is appreciated.
For a number of things you should be able to get away with EG's code node. However, yes, there are a number of things that you won't be able to replicate in EG.
Hi,
I have recently used SAS EG and the book you have mentioned, and can't see any limitation as long as you do everything in a code node. Perhaps you can be a bit more specific about the problems you are having.
As far as I know, the certification requirements (and skills practiced therein) can be achieved using EG.
There are some "old school" (but still used) SAS programming constructs that don't work in EG due to its client-server architecture, and that might be what was referring to. However, I'm not aware that any of those show up as essential for programming certification.
Chris
Hi, Chris:
You're right that things like the VAR window or the X command don't work in the EG code window, the same way they do in the SAS Windowing Environment. And, you're also correct that those are minor things that do not impact studying for the Base SAS Programmer certification.
The Base SAS Certification Prep Guide has screen shots that were taken using SAS Display Manager -- so yes, they LOOK different than the EG code interface. Students who are using SAS on Unix or the Mainframe have the same issues (what they see in the book does not look the same as what they see on their computer). But the interface that a person uses to type and submit SAS programs is different from SAS itself.
It is more important to focus on the CODE, than the INTERFACE. The Prep Guide will show the SAS log in a different window. EG will have a log, but the log window will look different. The Prep Guide shows LISTING or HTML output. EG does not show LISTING output unless you explicitly turn it on. But again, that is an interface difference. The report does look prettier in HTML or SAS Report format (when you use EG) than the old LISTING window - -but the thing to focus on is not whether the book shows LISTING and you see HTML -- the thing to focus on is that the book shows output of a certain type. The type of output you get (whether it's HTML or LISTING or RTF) is all controllable -- either with statements or with menu choices in EG.
If someone is using SAS OnDemand for Professionals and EG (for example) with the certification Prep Guide, then there are other differences. The Prep Guide showed Windows path names like this:
libname wombat 'c:\somedir\';
but, for the SAS OnDemand server, which is a UNIX server, that path name won't work. So the libname will probably be something like (your_username -- means you have to type your username in the path):
libname wombat '/home/your_username/bookdata/sas_cert_prep_guides';
OR, to read one of the "flat" files like ADMIT.DAT using an INFILE and FILENAME statement:
filename admit '/home/your_username/bookdata/sas_cert_prep_guides/admit.dat';
So, it really depends on what, specifically, doesn't work.
Folks should be able to use EG and the program code window to practice for the Base SAS Programmer certification exam.
My .02,
cynthia
I agree with Cynthia
I've used SAS and EG extensively, and I passed the Base SAS exam last spring, and there's nothing in EG that will prevent you from preparing for the exam.
As Cynthia describes, some of the appearances may be a bit different, but I can assure you that if you want to be a SAS professional, you'd better be willing and able to adapt to these changes. It's the nature of working in this business!
Tom
Tom, Cynthia and Chris,
I have to admit that I've never taken any of the certification exams, thus I may be completely out somewhere in left field regarding this question. But, surely, there must be SOME questions on the exam regarding displaying windows, using X or systask commands, running AF code, using DDE, and regarding user developed shortcut keys.
Hi,
I can confirm, having done the exam 4 weeks ago, that there are not. Displaying windows, AF and DDE are legacy and deprecated capabilities (and I would hope that SAS would not encourage such things by testing it!), There was however a question on data step debugging (a very simple one at that), and that is about the only thing a SAS EG person would not know about.
Nick
Hi, Art:
I can confirm that Nick is right. Nothing about AF or DDE should be on that exam!
The questions for the Base SAS Programmer exam are drawn from the material in Programming 1 and Programming 2 courses. There is nothing taught on either AF or DDE in those courses. Why is that? AF is not universally delivered with Base SAS -- not everybody has or uses it. Same thing with DDE -- the DATA step techniques that you use for DDE are above and beyond the level of what we teach in Programming 1/2. And the use of DDE is highly specific to Windows users -- Mainframe and Unix and Linux SAS users can't use DDE. Using X commands and/or SYSTASK also fall outside of beginner level SAS usage.
When I teach those courses, about half my students use the Display Manager Windowing Environment and about half my students use the EG Program Editor window -- same course -- a programming course using 2 different interfaces. We do not teach anything about either the X command or SYSTASK in Programming 1 and Programming 2. Nor do we cover custom shortcut keys, because those are interface specific.
cynthia
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