Date:         Thu, 27 Apr 2000 11:43:03 +1200
Reply-To:     Andy Elvey <andy.elvey@PARADISE.NET.NZ>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Andy Elvey <andy.elvey@PARADISE.NET.NZ>
Organization: Paradise Net Ltd. Customer
Subject:      Re: Query - looking at doing a simple "open-source" SASinterpreter
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

 Thanks , all , for this.  Your comments and suggestions  have been *very* useful
and helpful .... :-)  Oh - and thanks for telling me about the "Bass system",
Karsten - I'd never heard of that !  Sounds very interesting ......
   Karsten - as for your talking with Richard Stallman about a "GNU SAS"  - that
would be very special, having him look at this area :)
   If such a thing went ahead,  it would be good to be able to use the work
already done by Jeff Bass (with his consent of course).

kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 26, 2000 at 10:27:20AM -0700, David L. Cassell wrote:
> > You wrote [in part]:
> > > Hi all.  I've been thinking about starting work on a simple open-source
> > > SAS interpreter (just Base SAS , and probably only  the data step and
> > > Procs Summary and Tabulate to start with).  This idea must have occurred
> > > to someone in the past, but I can find no trace of any discussions along
> > > these lines , and no sign of such a thing being attempted .....
> >
> > You may not have searched the SAS-L archives thoroughly enough.  Tim
> > Churches and Karsten Self have been working on something similar.
> > Full details of the project proposal can be found in the Gestalt System
> > Manifesto which is available at http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net
>
> Thanks, David.
>
> Actually, the project Tim and I are embarked on is *not* a SAS run-alike
> project, but a project to tie together packages existing in the free
> software community to provide capabilities not unlike those found in SAS
> itself.  There are a number of reasons for this, among them a strong
> belief that there are better models than the SAS one for building an
> analytic, processing, and reporting tool.
>
> For run-alike (and data sourcing) capabilities, I'd strongly recommend
> taking a look at what Henry Feldman, of Conceptual Software, is working
> on.  DBMS/Analyst is very much what you've described, though not
> currently envisioned as a free software project.  The current direction
> of the Gestalt System is to refer compatibility modes to either SAS or
> DBMS/Analyst, though a pluggable syntax interpreter module might be of
> interest.  GS is based on Python, so you might look to this if that's
> your aim.
>
> I talked with Jeff Bass last summer about his project, the Bass System,
> which was a SAS run-alike written for the PC in the 1980s, and a strong
> incentive for SI to release PC SAS.  He has indicated that sources are
> available to anyone who cares to do the asking.  He can be reached
> through the Amgen switchboard, in San Diego or Thousand Oaks (can't
> recall which), AFAIK.
>
> I've also been in contact with Richard Stallman regarding a GNU SAS
> project.  I've declined to take this on myself, but believe that there
> would be a potential interest in this.
>
> --
> Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>           http:/www.netcom.com/~kmself
>     What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
>     http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/
> GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595  DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0
>
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