Rating: 
Summary: good for beginners
Review: This book is concise and has many of the key ideas that beginning SAS programmers need. It is a good reference even for advanced SAS programmers but does not go far beyond the basics. If you use SAS regularly this will not have enough information for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Great to have
Review: This book is great at what it does. It builds the structure you need to know in order to do more advanced things. In addition it serves well as a reference on general sas programming. If you are only looking for detailed descriptions on the numerous procs that are available, you should look elsewhere.I you want to learn to program SAS, buy this one.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm new to SAS
Review: This book was highly recommended to me, but I have been a little disappointed so far. I do like the concise (2 page) sections, but following the examples is tedious. Every section has a different example and creating the raw data file to be read in using the INFILE statement takes a significant amount of time that would be better spent on actually learning SAS. This book could be improved a lot by building on just a few example data sets, or having a web page available for downloading the data. The book also moves too slowly and covers too many initially extraneous details. Chapter 2 is almost 40 pages long and covers every imaginable way of and inputting raw data. I would rather get to the material on manipulating the data much more quickly. Also, there are no exercises which is a big drawback. Virtually all science and mathematics texts have exercises. In summary, I wouldn't say not to buy this book, but I think you would have to have at least one other source of information, such as someone else who knows SAS, to learn the material properly.
Rating:
Summary: Quick reference book & beginner's guide
Review: This book works with all versions of SAS and I found it a useful reference. It explains to you how to enter and manipulate your datasets in SAS. Also brief description of PROCs and options with each PROC. Each topic is in a separate page and all contained in about 2 pages at the most. So do not expect so much details on these procedure but if you happened to forget a syntax line, grab this book's index and the reminder is there for you. I recommend it to all SAS users.
Rating:
Summary: If you use SAS, BUY THIS BOOK!
Review: This is a great book for beginners as well as for, contrary to the opinions of some of the other reviews, more advanced SAS users/programmers. I've done a lot of SAS programming and have access to the big and expensive technical manuals on SAS as well as other books on SAS programming. Despite having access to massive tomes on SAS, I almost ALWAYS turn to the Little SAS Book, 2nd ed., when I start programming. Let me put it another way: If I was stranded on a desert island and, for some bizarre reason needed to do SAS programming, had to take along one book on SAS, I would choose the Little SAS Book over any of the bigger manuals and books on SAS. By the way, while this book has not been updated since 1996, from my experience, it still works very well with the latest SAS version (ver. 8). Hopefully, the authors will come out with a 3rd edition.
Rating:
Summary: THe Lttle SAS Book; A primer second edition
Review: This is a great book for people who already have some knowledge of SAS, but do not use it really often. The book is often short on example but is a great resource when you are looking for the exact coding. This book is more user freindly than the SAS manual and give you the code you need on a regular basis, proc freq, reg, date format..... One limitation of this book was the lack of advance techniques. But if you need a small SAS reference book next to your computer "the little sas book " should be it.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for beginners
Review: This is a must have for beginners. I work in a firm where even the experts refer to this book from time to time. This book is not intended to explore advanced topics for the advanced user, but I promise that it will provide a great foundation for new users
Rating:
Summary: The best introductory SAS book I have found.
Review: This is a wonderful book for the beginning SAS user. It provides very well thought out examples that are easy to understand. I have been teaching and working with SAS for many years. This is the best introductory book I have found.
Rating:
Summary: Out-of-date, but still usable
Review: This Second Edition is good for up to SAS 8.x. For 9.x, you may want to wait until the Third Edition comes out in August, 2003. Also, SAS indicates that there is a "Revised" Second Edition (ISBN: 1-59047-113-X). However, I have not read it and don't know if it is better than its predecessor. This book (2nd ed.) is very thorough on the "operational" commands, but less so on the "statistical" procedures, which seems to be the whole point of using SAS. Any experienced programmer should be able to do file I/O, data selection, and report formatting in a day or two after reading this book. But to do even something as simple as a t-test, you will have to pull that information from other sources. The authors claim that "[o]nce you have mastered the procedures in this book, the other statistical procedures should feel similar". I tend to agree with them, but I still think that such intended omission is a shortcoming. And for that reason, I give this book a 4 out of 5.
Rating:
Summary: Out-of-date, but still usable
Review: This Second Edition is good for up to SAS 8.x. For 9.x, you may want to wait until the Third Edition comes out in August, 2003. Also, SAS indicates that there is a "Revised" Second Edition (ISBN: 1-59047-113-X). However, I have not read it and don't know if it is better than its predecessor. This book (2nd ed.) is very thorough on the "operational" commands, but less so on the "statistical" procedures, which seems to be the whole point of using SAS. Any experienced programmer should be able to do file I/O, data selection, and report formatting in a day or two after reading this book. But to do even something as simple as a t-test, you will have to pull that information from other sources. The authors claim that "[o]nce you have mastered the procedures in this book, the other statistical procedures should feel similar". I tend to agree with them, but I still think that such intended omission is a shortcoming. And for that reason, I give this book a 4 out of 5.
| 
