I was going to write more about reading JSON data but that will have to wait because I’m teaching a biostatistics class and I think this will be helpful to them. What’s a codebook? If you are using even a moderately complex data set, you will want a code book. At a minimum, it will…
Sometimes data changes shape and type over time. In my case, we had a game that was given away free as a demo. We saved the player’s game state – that is, the number of points they had, objects they had earned in the game, etc. as a JSON object. Happy Day! The game became…
When I was young and knew everything, I would frequently see procedures or statistics and think, “When am I ever going to use THAT?” That was my thought when I learned about this new procedure to transpose a data set. (It was new then. Keep in mind, I learned SAS when I was pregnant with…
I was reminded today how useful a SAS log can be, even when it doesn’t give you any errors. I’m analyzing data from a study on educational technology in rural schools. The first step is to concatenate 10 different data sets. I want to keep the source of the data, that is, which data set…
I know people who are so obsessive about testing and validating their code to the point they spend more time on testing it than actually writing it and analyzing the output. I said I know people like that, I didn’t say I was one of them. However, it is good practice to validate your SAS…
According to that source of all knowledge on the interwebz, Wikipedia, “Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.” Have you ever had a brilliant, super-competent friend who doubted her…
About ROUND(100) years ago, I took a couple of COBOL courses. I never coded anything in COBOL after the classes, but the concept of a table look up has stuck with me. Just like it sounds, this is used when you want to look something up in a table. For example, if I have ICD-10…
“I don’t document my code because if you really understood the language, it should be obvious.” – Bob Bob is an arrogant little prick. Here are just a few reasons to document your code. Other people may need to modify it because, despite your assumed brilliance, there may be other people in the universe…
I’m back with another SAS Tip of the Day. Like a lot of people, I work with dates very often. How many days is it from when a client applies to when he or she is determined eligible? How many days until the average client is employed? You get the idea. Inconveniently, in this particular…
Contrary to appearances, this is not an abandoned blog. I’ve been super-busy with 7 Generation Games, where we released two new games and a customized app for a client this month! At the same time, I’m in Santiago, Chile piloting games for our Spanish language brand, Strong Mind Studios, you can read some of my…