This is a very interesting conversation. Thanks for opening it up Charlotte. My employer uses a lot of Packaged SAS Solutions (we have some heathens who use solutions provided by other vendors) and our SAS Solutions greatly improve productivity of data analysts, business analysts, marketing analysts, and other 'users' who do not aspire to become a SAS developer. As Chris says, these packages free them up to focus on solving the business problem instead of getting data. The self-service provided by SAS Solutions quite rightly elimininates the need for 'low level' programming/development--that's one of its goals--but it increases the need for developers capable of high-level programming to solve problems too complex or 'messy' for a packaged product. Most significantly, the need for high-level extract-transform-clean-load development never goes away (even with DI Studio) and I think is increased by implementation of these self-service Solutions that analyze data and present information to decision makers. Myself, I wouldn't want to be an Administrator... it's too much like a Systems Administrator. I'm with Chris... I think this is a very good time to be a SAS programmer/developer. There's great opportunity for younger people to grow and do exciting things.
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