Rating: 
Summary: Looking forward to version 2.0
Review: As the Product Manager for the SAS Learning Edition, I would like to clarify the posting by a reader from Leicester, UK. Their concern was that the ability to view data tables has been removed. The SAS Learnign Edition does provide an enhanced method of viewing tables in the Data Grid display area of Enterprise Guide. Enterprise Guide is the new preferred Windows interface for SAS that comes with the SAS Learning Edition and provides comprehensive data viewing from the Data Grid.
Rating: 
Summary: Clarification of Review from Leicester, UK.
Review: As the Product Manager for the SAS Learning Edition, I would like to clarify the posting by a reader from Leicester, UK. Their concern was that the ability to view data tables has been removed. The SAS Learnign Edition does provide an enhanced method of viewing tables in the Data Grid display area of Enterprise Guide. Enterprise Guide is the new preferred Windows interface for SAS that comes with the SAS Learning Edition and provides comprehensive data viewing from the Data Grid.
Rating:
Summary: clarification of prior review
Review: As the Product Manager for the SAS Learning Edition, I would like to clarify the previous posting: You can absolutely write your own code using this product. The SAS Learning Edition has it's own code window where you can either import existing SAS code (code examples are provided with the product) and modify it, or you can write your own SAS programs in the easy-to-use, color-coded, syntax-checking code window. In addition to writing your own SAS code, you can use the code-genrating capability of the new Enterprise Guide interface, included with the SAS Learning Edition. Enterprise Guide will create SAS code for you by using the point-and-click features of its interactive dialogs. You can also read any PC data types, in additon to SAS data, and do manipulation on that data.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, this is a great way to learn SAS, including programming
Review: Do you want to learn SAS but don't know where to start?
This is a great way to learn about the power and functionality of Base SAS, regardless of whether you love or hate programming. It includes an easy-to-use, point-and-click Windows interface (Enterprise Guide) that generates SAS code for you behind the scenes. You can follow the simple exercises in the included book to read different sources of data, process that data in SAS, and produce HTML (web page) output, all without writing a line of code yourself.
For those who want to learn how to write SAS code, you can examine the code that gets generated by the point-and-click interface, modify that code if you wish, or write your own code from scratch. (The reader from Cincinnati who said, "you can't do actual programming in the software" is wrong.) For programmers who have used SAS before and prefer the Display Manager System interface, you can do that too...
At first, I thought the ...price tag was somewhat steep, but I was impressed once I saw the software (you'd have to pay thousands to license this same software from SAS). The Learning Edition does limit the amount of output you get to 1,000 rows, but this is more than enough to learn what SAS can do.
For beginners who want to continue expanding their SAS knowledge, I would recommend also getting "The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Second Edition". You can use the programming environment in SAS Learning Edition to do the exercises in that book.
I had never touched SAS software before, but heard about Learning Edition through word-of-mouth, then bought it and went through the included exercises. In December I interviewed for, and landed, a SAS job. While this obviously wasn't the only thing that got me the job, the hiring manager did say it made a difference that I had experience with SAS Learning Edition. I highly recommend this product.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat disappointed
Review: I was somewhat disappointed because the available statistical tests are only those of freshman statistics. If you wish to do multivariate statistics/advanced statistical models, you are out of luck. For example, while many researchers will perform hundreds of Chi-square or T tests on the data. That is the wrong way to do it. You have five chances out of a hundred that a test will show as positive, purely by chance. So if you do 500 statistical tests you should get at least 25 items showing as significant, by chance. Sort of like throwing 500 darts over your shoulder at a dartboard, some are bound to hit the target, but that does not prove you are an expert dart thrower. The researcher will then publish those 25 items in an article. I also do not see any Error Statistics in this version of the product. Error Statistics are necessary to examine the quality of the data, i.e. those darts you threw over your shoulder mostly missed the dart board, and hit just about everything else behind you.
Rating:
Summary: Looking forward to version 2.0
Review: I'm giving SAS Learning Edition, version 1.0, 4 stars ... but I'm grading on a curve.Before I get any further in writing this review, let me briefly go over my experience with SAS: A few years ago I used a fully functional SAS version 8 for financial econometrics. Having gotten that out of the way, here are my two cents on this Learning Edition. First of all, I applaud the SAS Institute for coming out with a learners' edition of SAS for people's home PCs. Considering the advances in desktop computing over the last 20 years and the obvious benefits of promoting a product like SAS to a wide a group of numerate potential users out there, I'm frankly shocked that SAS Institute didn't do this sooner. When I was in school (which was not that long ago), the only thing that I could get for my personal computer from SAS was JMP, a misguided product which has no obvious purpose in the age of Excel with VBA add-ons being able to tackle much of what JMP can do and considering that JMP is too wimpy to compete with higher-level statistical/mathematical software applications like SAS itself. The non-availability of a learners' version of SAS was particularly bizzare considering the fact that other competitive applications like SPSS, Mathematica, Matlab, Maple, etc., have had learners' versions for several years prior to SAS' efforts. Heck, statistical/mathematical software like R and Octave are absolutely free! So I'm glad that the SAS Institute has done what they did. BUT - as many of the more critical and skeptical reviews before mine have pointed out - version 1.0 of this product definitely has some weaknesses. Those weaknesses include some annoying bugs as well as unreasonably limited functionality. To be fair to SAS, it is not fair to expect them to offer full functionality at this relatively (relative to a SAS license) inexpensive price, especially with what is suppose to be a learning edition. However, there is a fine line between protecting the SAS franchise and not offering the degree of functionality that rationally should be offered to: (a) help learners truly learn SAS, and (b) wet people's appetites for fully functional SAS. To further expand upon point (b), what if a student or a novice professional started playing around with a better, more functional version of SAS LE. When they get into a work environment and a set of problems arises, that person who was using a version 2.0 of this product could suggest to his/her boss that "Hey, SAS can handle this problem" instead of some other software package and/or programming in VBA, C++, Java, etc. So my fervent and sincere hope is that the SAS Institute is listening - and judging by a couple of the posts, they seem to be - and come out with a new and improved version 2.0 of this product. So, if the SAS Institute is listening to my measured, fair, and even toned review, then I hope that they will put out a version 2.0 of this product that: (a) Is priced at an affordable level (please remember the days when you were a hungry student or a lower-level professional); (b) Adds more functionality; (c) Fixes the bugs; (d) Has better documentation gratis; and (e) Isn't over-bearing in promoting non-'traditional' SAS interfaces ... After all, this software is suppose to help people familiarize themselves with the full power of SAS and not simply a dumbed-down, wimpy point, click, fill-in-the-blank interface. If potential users really wanted the later, then they could simply use Excel (possibly with some add-ons and/or VBA code) instead of SAS.
Rating:
Summary: SAS learning edition
Review: Not good if you want to learn SAS programming because you can't do actual programming in the software included in the book. This book is just for appreciating the capabilities of SAS.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: The SAS Learner edition is virtually useless for most purposes. There doesn't appear to be a way to code it directly (you have to use the "Enterprise Guide"), the output is not in the same format as the regular version, it's very picky about printers (the graphs won't print on my printer and will not "print to file" to be printed from there either), and it does NOT come with a useful manual even though the product description implies that it does. And worst of all, it does not help you to learn how to really use SAS software. This is a total waste of money!
Rating:
Summary: Good intro to the world of SAS
Review: The SAS learning edition is a good intro into the SAS world. SAS skills are definitely on demand and many people are interested in it but availability remains a problem due to prohibitive pricing. The learning edition would allow you to test the waters relatively cheap. The output is limited to 1000 rows but that's more than sufficient for a learner. The companion book that comes with it leaves a lot to be desired though. I had brought the SAS learning edition from sas.com Unfortunately, I didn't knew that it was available through amazon.com and was charged ~$140 with taxes and shipping. amazon.com charges $125 with free shipping. I would recommend the product who want to learn about SAS. Also, for a solid intro, get "The Little SAS Book".
Rating:
Summary: OK for learning basics, but not good for advanced study
Review: This is a very nice software package to learn SAS basics. But it does not have lots of advanced procedures. For example, "PROC STATESPACE" and "PROC VARMAX" among others used for forecasting time series are missing in this learning edition. It is very disappointing somehow if you try to learn more and deeper after learning some basics. However, it is still worth having it......
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