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My Adventures with SAS 9.2 v2 and sexual harassment

FINALLY got a few minutes to download the latest version. For some reason the download I received was for the planned installation as opposed to the basic installation.

In 25 words or less, basic installation is for stand-alone installs on a single machine, which we have hundreds of users doing. The planned installation would be used if you had a meta-data repository, SAS on a server distributed to client machines or some other configuration which we did not have.

So, I have logged in as SAS administrator, downloaded the download manager, applied the order number and key, created a software depot and — nothing.

After slogging through several documents, I realized that we had been sent the wrong thing. Either that, or one of the right things telling us how to use this for a non-planned installation, had been omitted. Got through right away to the lovely Angie McKinley from SAS who sent me a link how to skip the planning part and voila ! My deployment deploys and I now have SAS 9.2 v2 and Enterprise Guide 4.2 on a computer running Windows XP.

By the way, since I am taking this incredibly stupid required course on Workplace Harassment Prevention let me just specify that I do not actually know what Angie McKinley looks like and the lovely is referring to her helpfulness and is not in any way a reflection of ageist/sexist/gender-specificist/racist/lookist stereotypical intent. Come on, I am Hispanic, female and over 40. I believe as a group we are mostly accused of harassing our children for not calling often enough. (“Yes, I know you are covering the World Cup. So, what, they don’t have phones in South Africa?“)

SAS 9.2, which I am testing in between clicking on the stupid harassment training, is so far working well. Opened up an xslx file no problem. Tried Enterprise Guide 4.2 and
mudskipper1Hey wait a minute …. something looks different here…

First of all, there is no longer a DATA menu. Instead, under tasks, there is a FILTER and Sort. There is also a QUERY BUILDER which is where you now create new variables a.k.a. computed columns. Okay, so having just completed the docs on Enterprise Guide on my personal pages, I will need to go recreate them. This does not motivate me to do my little happy dance.

Other than having to redo a few pages I just finished, though, I cannot complain about EG 4.2, personally. With the FILTER & SORT and Query Builder, it looks more Access-ish.

So, what have we got here… a combination of SAS, SQL, Access, Excel and something that looks like the new ODS Graphics. SPSS users will find it WAY easier to move to Enterprise Guide than they would to SAS. Kind of like Esperanto, it has bits of everything to make it a little familiar to anyone who has experience with just about any fringe of data management and statistical software package. Except, unlike Esperanto, I think it will catch on. (You see, I used the Esperanto reference here rather than some breeding analogy so that no one could feel harassed. Except for maybe celibate people who speak Esperanto, but AFAIK they are not a protected class.)

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6 Comments

  1. I’m not sure where you received the information that “Esperanto has not caught on”

    It’s unfortunate that only a few people know that Esperanto has become a living language.

    During a short period of 121 years Esperanto is now in the top 100 languages, out of 6,800 worldwide, according to the CIA World factbook. It is the 17th most used language in Wikipedia, and in use by Skype, Firefox and Facebook.

    Native Esperanto speakers,(people who have used the language from birth), include George Soros, World Chess Champion Susan Polger, Ulrich Brandenberg the new German Ambassador to NATO and Nobel Laureate Daniel Bovet. According to the CIA Factbook the language is within the top 100 languages, out of all languages, worldwide.

    Confirmation of this can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670 A glimpse of the language can be seen at http://www.lernu.net

  2. It seems you are unaware of the Esperanto community that’s still growing and keeps growing through the years. You can go to http://lernu.net, a site for learning Esperanto (totally free) to get an idea of what’s going on. You can also try to contact the local Esperantist group. In some cities it’s bigger, in some cities it’s smaller, I have yet to find a city without one.

  3. Since 1970 I’m a married man, and have been using Esperanto since 1966 with foreign people until today.

    It’s true that I was a celibate in 1962, when after only 3 months of study I have learned Esperanto and read my first book in it. I taught myself. From that far year until today I have been reading books and magazines, listening to the radio, travelling in Brazil and sometimes in foreign countries and finding hundreds of people that speak this language too.

    Ah! One of my granddaughters (13 years old ( is a celibate and speaks Esperanto too. Another (4 years old) is learning, as her mother to travel to a World Conference of Esperanto that is coming to be held in Poland, next July.

    Her father, my son (36), speaks Esperanto since he is born, as does both my other Children a boy (32) and a girl (28) also speak Esperanto since they were born.

    So does my wife too and is accompanying me, with two of my Children to that conference.

    Ah, my second boy is not a celibate too, he is married and his wife speaks Esperanto too with their two children, the last one (5) is leaning Esperanto too with their parents and sister.

    Last my daughter spent a year ion the Chech Republic when she was 16/17 and used several times Esperanto their and in Germany, where she took part in a meeting of young people (of course celibates, but everybody using Esperanto) from almost 40 different countries.

    As you see you are anaware not only about your new software, but about Esperanto AT ALL!

    José Mário Marques
    Natal – Brazil
    José Mário Marques

  4. I think her comments are more of a playful antagonism than an outright judgmental statement…. unless of course, she added the parenthetical statement afterwards….. =O

    I found it rather humorous.

    ….and yes, some of us have a Google Alert setup to find news and things of interest about Esperanto (like me). Sad but true. =)

    We are a passionate bunch, so take our comments with a caring grain of salt. =)

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