I'd like to see a simpler way of creating and using hash tables...something consistent with the syntax and structure of either data statements or proc sql structure.
My suggestion...something lie this:
libname foobar memory; (kind of like memlib, but cross-platform)
and then it could be generated like this:
create foobar as select id,desc from sometable key=id;
-or-
data foobar; set sometable; keep id,desc; key=id; run;
from that point on, foobar could be used just like any other dataset:
proc sql; select store,storetable.id,foobar.desc from storetable left join foobar on storetable.id=foobar.id;
That seems much easier to use and teach than hash and it's yet-another-syntax.